After Ybor City, we made our way to the Henry Plant Museum, which is on the grounds of the University of Tampa. Henry Plant was a railroad magnate who developed the train system on the west coast of Florida, and he built this ridiculously opulent hotel in the 1890s. The hotel served as the US embarkment point for the Spanish-American War and Teddy Roosevelt camped outside with his rough riders. The hotel operated until 1932 and was bought by the city of Tampa in 1933. They preserved the Gilded Age artifacts and turned part of it into a museum and part of it into space for the University (it is a National Historic Landmark):
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| I tired to get a panorama to show how ridiculously large this building is, but it was hard to capture |
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| Main hallway |
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| The rooms just have hundreds of preserved items. These are garden stools which used to be placed all over the land surroundignthe hotel |
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| All these gilded age millionaires had a thing for geese |
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| This lamp took up half a room |
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| Benji on the admissions side of the building, which still has most of the original furnishings even though it is used as offices |
We had a little time to kill after the museum, so we made out way to Sparkman's Wharf. We were not that hungry for dinner, so we had ice cream and decided to go bowling:
We finished just in time to head to the Rays game. The Rays are currently playing in the Yankees spring training field (Steinbrenner Stadium) since Tropicana Field was damaged in a hurricane last year. They totally revamped the stadium to remove most references to the Yankees, but the logo is still on all the seats. It was a pretty night and we all enjoyed the game:
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