Hanging Around By Caron Schwartz Sometimes a girl just wants to have fun. So, when I saw that
bright orange Jupiter electric bike at Lenny’s Surf & Cycle Shop in St. Pete Beach I had to have it! I promptly named him Julius (he is orange after all). Paintings - Ceramics - Glass - Jewelry - Fiber [gallery open Sunday-Tuesday 11-4, Thursday-Saturday 11-7]
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For our first adventure we checked out the murals from the 2020 SHINE festival. Armed with a printout of the map on the St. Pete Arts Alliance website, we took off down the Pinellas Trail toward St. Pete. I knew to keep “Hey guys, come on out and play!” an eye on the battery, so we’d have enough juice for the return trip. So we stuck with murals in and around Central Ave. First up was iBOMS’s “Where the Bloom Begins” on the Grand Central Brewhouse. I’d seen photos, but they don’t prepare you for the different textures the artist infused into the wall, especially the glittering teeth. While there, Julius tried to befriend a posse of e-scooters, but they couldn’t escape their corral. Next was Nneka Jones and Bianca Burrows’s “The Global Currency” on the Goodyear Rubber building. A commentary on social injustice, the mural exudes sadness and anger. We rode along 1st Ave. N. looking for the murals there. We saw some old ones but were frustrated at not being able to find the 2020 additions. Meanwhile, Julius was intrigued by the arrays of rental bikes we passed. “When I grow up I want to be a Coast bike,” he confided.
“When I grow up I want to be a Coast bike.”
I needed a break. Locking a lonely Julius at a bike rack, I enjoyed amazing pistachio non-dairy ice cream at Plant Love.
With the battery display at about half, it was time to head home. We cruised Central Ave until turning south to Gulfport, wandering through a neighborhood we later found out was Westminster Heights. Before long we popped back onto the Pinellas Trail and the spur into Gulfport. What a fun day! JupiterBike www.jupiterbike.com Lenny’s Surf & Cycle Shop www.lennyssurfshop.com St. Pete Arts Alliance SHINE www.stpeteartsalliance.org/index.php/shine-2020 Pixelstix www.pixelstix.com/shine-mural-festival Plant Love www.facebook.com/plantloveicecream ParadiseNewsFL.com | MAY 2021
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