The Longest Sidewalk in the World

On the corner of Bayshore and Bay to Bay is a little unpaved parking lot dedicated to joggers, rollerbladers, boarders, and power-walking super moms whose strollers often parody their SUVs in size, amenities, and torque capacity. It's free to park, and therefore amazing. That is where I started my journey to traverse the world's longest continuous sidewalk. It is a fairly wide path lining the Tampa Bay (technically this is the Hillsborough Bay, but unless you're cramming for a geographical version of Jeopardy...) that goes along Bayshore Boulevard.

Here is the majestic Bayshore Blvd, to give you some idea of the length of it.

Here's a picture from "A". I'm on the left. "B" is downtown, on the right. The faaaar right.

From my car, I crossed the street and headed south to the beginning of the sidewalk/park. Most

believe that the sidewalk park starts at Gandy Blvd, which is true for giving directions, but the actual non-stop sidewalk starts a few 100 feet from Gandy, after you cross the private entrance to some super expensive looking condos in a gated community. Ah, to be rich and famous.

Bayshore is truly picturesque, and knowing this they've built a lot of rest areas into the seawall, so people can stop and have a chat, or maybe just enjoy a lovely sunny afternoon, or what have you, provided they don't die crossing Bayshore Boulevard itself. I am not joking. Close to 5 miles and not a single major crosswalk for pedestrians.

Clearly the Tampa Bay County Commissioners were not big fans of the Beatles.

Still, there are really positive aspects of Bayshore. For example, this is where Tampa holds the infamous Gasparilla Pirate Festival. I didn't go this year, but I caught the help taking down the bleachers.

Also to consider is the amazing architecture. I am something of an architectural fanatic.

I once wanted to walk around downtown Philadelphia with a big foam finger and point and cheer at all of the structural marvels. For some reason, the rest of my family wanted to stay in that day. But Tampa architecture is really quite unique because of our Cuban heritage (after all, we used to be very well known for our cigar companies, some of which still stand) which hearkens back to a more Mediterranean style. This is why when you come to Tampa, you tend to see porches with arcades (several rolls of arches) mixed in with the more colonial houses. The climate also really favors these Italian and Spanish appearing homes. I can't imagine how much this particular house cost, but considering its size and location, I bet it cost a pretty penny. I digress.

Ok, this is something that I frankly did not get. Like, why is there this cascading staircase that leads out into the water and rolls in towards the wall? I'm sure that it has some kind of actual use like docking some bejeweled paddleboat for the rich people who live in the house above, but every time I see these stairs, I picture Katherine Hepburn or Vivian Leigh rushing down in a giant petticoated dress searching the bay for their long lost love, which is not very realistic.

But alas, like these women's careers, my journey must come to an end, and it does at the bridge connecting Bayshore to the Davis Islands.

In truth, my ventures didn't end here, like the sidewalk did. I continued on into downtown, with the intent of checking out the new art museum, but the art director or whoever stands by the staircase entryway looked at me and my longboard like I was pimple on prom night, so I pretended to read the prices and meandered on back outside. Feeling a little let down, I continued on to Moxie's, but they were full and looked incredibly professional - not at all like the laid-back attitude of frequent student hangout, Kaleisia, in North Tampa, so I gave this a pass as well.

Two strikes, and nothing else to do for the rest of the afternoon, I decided to size up the opposition at the University of Tampa. Strike Three. There are no photos of UT, because UT sucks and I have zero intention of trying to mask this. It was an awful experience. I felt singled out and as if everyone was staring at me, and when I stopped in their cafeteria (which, through amazing mood lighting, felt more like an upscale parlor that required more sophisticated conversation where you dropped old language names and phrases like Le Corbusier and Il Cognescenti) to use the restroom, I could have sworn that the two Abercrombie and Fitch models taking a piss were about to start doing coke off each other, or perhaps trade Louis Vuitton shades to see if their girlfriends "noticed". Either way you cut it, I felt largely out of place and I just went home afterwards.

The reason I mention UT though, is because I noticed something while I was there. I was the only person with a longboard on campus during my 15 minute rendezvous. I didn't even see a skateboard. This was very odd to me because ever since I decided to start blogging about longboarding, I've noticed several longboards and skateboards on campus at USF. As a matter of fact, not a single day goes by that I don't see someone with one - it's so commonplace that I usually just tune it out. Perhaps having a longboard is showing something of my social status (since UT is full of children with...what we shall call a disposable income). Perhaps its more of a social group marker, as I'm the kind of guy who would rather shop at Hot Topic than at Hollister (I don't do either, in case you're wondering. Most of my t-shirts are from Threadless, which I believe offers a creative alternative to mainstream department stores). Whatever it is, it's palpable. I set out last week to discover a new side of Tampa. And I suppose you could say that I did just that.

-Andy