February 20 & 21, Tuesday and Wednesday; Tarpon Springs, FL
In the last two days I’ve traveled south to the town of Dunedin – by car and bus – not boat. And why? So I could play ukulele along with Jan Mutaska’s dulcimer; Jan being the boating friend that we ate dinner with the other night. Yesterday she drove 1/2 hour north from Dunedin to pick me up so I could enjoy their Dulcimer Club meeting at the Dunedin Senior Center. I was amazed at the number of players – 25 or more- all playing lovely dulcimer music. Jan had told me to join in with my ukulele and people were very welcoming. Of course there were 3 women there originally from Massachusetts and we chatted a bit.
We had a quiet evening and I took a walk around the marina at sunset.
Today (Wednesday) Jan and I had more musical plans. We joined a groups of blue grass musicians that play together for a few hours each week next to the Rail trail in Dunedin. There were 3 fiddlers, a banjo, a bass and 3 guitars, a hammered dulcimer, Jan with her dulcimer and myself and another woman with our ukuleles. It was fun and challenging in that we had no music and had to figure out when to play which chords by ear. I’m not sure the ukes added much but it was fun.
To get to Dunedin I decided to figure out the public transportation in this tourist area – which is the Jolly Trolley! It involved going online, downloading an app (of course) to get a schedule and then walking about 5 minutes to the local stop. But I forgot about the “exact change” part and ended up “borrowing” a quarter each from two nice young men on the trolley!
Since it was our last night in Tarpon Springs we planned to go out with our friends Chris and Roger to the famous Rusty Bellies seafood restaurant. (They had non-seafood options as well). To organize our outing I downloaded yet another app – “Nowait” because the restaurant always has long wait times. The app lets you get your name on the wait list before you leave your abode (aboat?). We had a good meal and a very good time. We will miss our new friends.
Wandering Star 