Author: Joey deVilla

The Great Summer Vacation continues!

Yesterday, Anitra and I headed to Gulfport for some walking around. Before that, thought, we went to nearby South Pasadena, where our dinner destination was Ted Peters, an open-air place that specializes in smoked fish.

They smoke their own fish on the premises, of which there are four different varieties: mullet, mackerel, mahi mahi and salmon.

I had the mahi mahi dinner, pictured above. In addition to a very generous serving of fish, the dinners come with German-style potato salad (complete with chunks of bacon), coleslaw, slices of tomato and sweet onion, a pickle spear, a wedge of lemon and two kinds of horseradish sauce: plain and with pickapepper.

With dinner done, we made our way to Gulfport’s Beach Boulevard:

Beach Boulevard is a Floridian counterpart to Toronto’s Kensington Market: home to a lot of artists, with many houses painted in offbeat colours and housing businesses. Unlike Kensington, it’s close to the water and populated with a lot of retirees.

We decided to get a closer look at the Art Village Courtyard:

Massage, tea and an art studio — none of these would be out of place in Kensington Market:

Although it’s not evident in these photos, Florida gets a lot of sunshine, so a lot of houses here are brightly-coloured. However, in Gulfport, they take it to a whole new level:

Here’s one of the local art shops:

Here’s a clothing store:

And here’s a realtor’s office:

I love these “There’s Something About Mary” apartments that are pretty common round these parts:

Here’s my favourite sign on one of the local eateries:

We went out for a quick look on the pier before the storm came in:

Tanned, fit and rested, that’s me:

On the way back to shore, a couple of great blue herons decided to take a perch on the railing. They’re probably used to getting scraps from people fishing off the pier, because they showed no skittishness around humans. I was able to get some great up-close-and-personal shots of these birds as a result:

We could see the clouds coming in, so we made a dash back to the car, ending our visit to Gulfport. I’d like to see what this place looks like when it’s sunny!