hooray! dad’s free day!
tommy permalink | categories: 366, city, entertainment, free, palmetto beach, tampa, things to doby tommy @ 1:03 pm
I took off from work to spend a couple days with the soon-to-be 3rd grader. Having exhausted my patience with crafts, games, Barbie, and SpongeBob on day one, I thought we should get out of the house for a second day of fun.
I didn’t have a spare hundred bucks laying around for a theme park, so I figured I’d try to keep the nearly-eight-year-old happy without spending a bunch of dough.
Not only did we have a good time, but I got out of it without spending much at all. In fact, after breakfast, I didn’t spend a thing.
We started out at Dunkin’ Donuts. Yep - the Rays won the night before, and When the Rays Win, You Win! So we each enjoyed a free donut for breakfast with all the old folks! With my coffee and her milk (and, ok, another donut for each of us), we got out of there for about $5.
Next we went to the library. There is a lake and a park adjacent, so we took our time walking around a bit. We looked for frogs on the lily pads (none), butterflies near the flowers (a handful), and dragonflies everywhere else (a bunch). We successfully avoided all fire ant mounds.
Once inside, she immediately found the library’s toys for smaller ones, and the little girl had fun with them for quite a while. She then walked the entire juvenile section - over a dozen aisles! - looking for a good book or three. I convinced her to put Junie B. Jones (First Grader) back on the shelf and keep the Goosebumps story, The Girl Who Cried Monster. She also grabbed a big Narnia book.
Then we went off to the mall! Not to buy anything, but to play in the kids’ play area. She towered over the other kids, and had fun getting chased around. I found out later that there is a 42 inch limit to that play area. Luckily, no one kicked us out. But I was getting hungry, and we left anyway.
We went home, where I taught her how to make a double-decker peanut butter sandwich. She thought a triple-decker would be a good idea, but seeing as how I am the daddy, I had to put my foot down.
But just because we were home doesn’t mean that we were done for the day. On to the pool!
The City of Tampa has a dozen parks with pools, and they are all free to use. We went to the Spicola Family Pool at 
DeSoto Park (we love DeSoto Park!) and spent the afternoon there in the Palmetto Beach neighborhood.
Like the pool at Sulphur Springs, Spicola has lap lanes, two waterslides, and a giant waterspouting mushroom-looking thing that kids love. They even have a shade tent where a daddy can comfortably read his own library book!
On the way home, we stopped at the McKay Bay Nature Park, part of the Great Florida Birding Trail. It was fun for about 20 minutes. We saw unusual birds and big spiders on bigger spider webs. In our one bad decision, we picked a random trail that wound through the brush. Although we didn’t get bit, we were chased right back into the car by a cloud of mosquitos!
The kid will tell you she had a great day (although she was not much impressed by the mosquito attack)! Daddy had a great day, too, watching his daughter be a kid.
It wasn’t difficult, either. Just go and use the amenities that are available to you!
For Free!
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July 30th, 2008 at 9:33 am
What a great story. Thanks for sharing!
July 30th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
They had so much fun we will be doing it again! There are so many places to go that don’t cost at all or very little! But if everyone did go to the places we found our great spots would get a little crowded; we don’t mind the company!
August 4th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Great post, Tommy. My wife and I checked out Desoto Park on your recommendation and thought it was terrific. Can’t wait to throw a line off the pier some morning.