The Sunshine State

The Renaissance Vinoy Resort

Fort De Soto Beach: "America's #1 beach"

Downtown St Pete

Ryan and I are in St Petersburg, FL and I am finally getting to see 80 degrees this year! Ryan has a conference here and this is also where his grandmother lives, so I came along to visit. I am very happy to have some summer weather, even if it is October. I managed to miss the hot weather almost everywhere I went this year. I was in Seattle until June 20, but this was the coldest June ever recorded in Seattle. It was the first time on record that it didn't hit 80 degrees in June. I proceeded to spend a month on the Alaska Peninsula in what was an unusually cold July. On Kodiak I did luck out with 6 days of sunny weather for our dig, but the warmest it got was 64 degrees - not exactly hot. After I left Kodiak I spent 3 weeks in Fairbanks where it was unseasonably chilly. Amazingly it was 91 in Fairbanks just a week before I got there. My hopes were high for warm summer weather, but it didn't happen. As I was preparing to leave Fairbanks for Seattle, I kept checking the weather in Seattle. There were several 80 degree days just before I got home, but once I got there it cooled off to the 60's and now it's in the 50's. So, I am happy to at least be able to wear my shorts and sandals once this year!

Ryan's conference is in downtown St Pete at the Vinoy Resort - a totally swank hotel resort with a golf course. We've heard from a few different people that the hotel was run down and abandoned for a long time before it was bought and turned into the Vinoy Resort. It is amazing that a place that fancy used to have homeless people living in it. St Pete has a very nice downtown area with lots of green space. It's hard to imagine what it was like with an abandoned building right on the waterfront.

-Molly