Banyan Trees of Downtown St. Pete

No visit to downtown St. Pete is complete without seeing the banyan trees!

The yellow building is the Museum of Fine Arts. And this is only ONE of the two large trees. You can see the people for scale of how giant they really are!

Here's the other of the banyan trees just past the first one above.

Another shot of how they grow roots down from the branches to form new trunks.

You can see Piper hanging out in the branches!

Museum of Fine Arts - Downtown St. Petersburg

Few weekends ago, we went to the Museum of Fine Arts in downtown St. Petersburg. Last year, we had gone for a visit only to arrive and discover 90% of the place was closed for renovations. So they gave us free tickets to come back at a later date and we finally got around to going.

Home to a wide variety of amazing art - including famous artists like Monet, Cezanne, Renoir, etc. - there's also galleries of ancient artifacts, glass, photography and currently an exhibit of young Chinese artists trying to make statements on the political climate of China.

Needless to say, there was a lot to look at!

There's this huge, neat tree that everyone climbs on the side of the MFA. Here I'm holding Piper so you can get an idea of scale!

Outside of the museum

Ancient marble sculpture of Ceasar.

This is a neat piece and always catches my eye.
Magic Lantern, Robert Vickrey

This is so amazing in person. The subtlety of the piece is lost in photos but it's truly amazing.
House of Parliament: Effect of Fog, London Monet 1904

This is one of my absolute favorites in the museum.
You couldn't see it well in Piper's pic, so I put another shot so you can see it better.
Julia as Flora, Roman Goddess of Flowers, 1799

Can't find a page for it but it's Mercury Preparing to Kill Argus, Berthel Thorvaldsen 1818
In the background is Major Archibald Robertson of Lawyers  and another I can't find a page for.

This is the catwalk on the second floor overlooking the main lobby of the museum. The permanent collection items are in the galleries on the right and the visiting collection and gift shop would be on the left.

Busch Gardens Tampa

Last Sunday we headed over to Busch Gardens Tampa for a few hours to take in the scenery and take some photos with the new camera lens I got for my birthday. We left the house and it was a little cloudy but no big deal. When we got there however, it got VERY dark and almost immediately started to rain.

We made it to the park and walked to the open safari area....

...only to see the storm clouds roll in very quickly and the skies opened up.

 We ran and took shelter under a covered area. Turns out, we were lucky because one of the lions was also taking shelter - right up against the glass!!

Piper gets VERY up close and personal with the lion!

There was a break in the rain, so we headed out. We'll try again another day. But I doubt we'll ever get so much awesome time face-to-literal-face with the lion like that!