Finding Florida at Heritage Village

Today I spoke to a packed house at Heritage Village for the Speaking of History series. I talked mostly about US 98 and how much fun it is to eat your way through Florida's panhandle. If you missed the talk, trust me on this: it's the most fun you can have with your clothes on (although clothing is by no means necessary). I mean, if you like seafood. If you don't care for seafood, well, you're kind of up a creek there, but then, you do have some of the best beaches in the world to occupy you while everyone else starts shoveling in the oysters like the world's about to end.

I won't rehash the entire tour, but I have to say I was thrilled the St. Petersburg Tribune sent out a reporter to cover my talk. You can read the article here. Note to my Gulfport peeps: I really did tell the audience "Gulfport is it for me" so, yeah, you're stuck with me.

After I spoke, someone asked me if I had a web site and I directed them here. However, since I went under contract with the University Press of Florida for a book about my travels, I haven't posted here – largely because the bulk of what I have to say, I'm saying in print, and they asked that I not, in essence, compete with myself. Since I blog for free and, ostensibly, I will one day make money from writing the book, it seemed like a fair enough request.

However, if you're here because I directed you here at my talk, don't go away. You can do two things: one, follow me on Twitter @CathySalustri, because every time I post to my other blog (the non-exclusive-to-Florida blog), it automatically pushes a Tweet. Don't ask me how; I call it Inter-magic; two, you can keep this site bookmarked, because while I cannot keep including material that may appear in the as-of-yet-untitled book, I will be including new material, not the least of which is my slow-but-steady Detours & Diversions travel column that appears in print and online in everyone's favorite weekly paper, the Gabber Newspaper.

As soon as Pinellas County gets today's presentation online, I'll publish a link to it. And I'll get my latest travels, to one of the state's only (legal) whiskey distilleries, online this week. So, you know, come back. I'm nowhere near as witty as the Bloggess, and certainly not as popular, but I like to think that "whiskey distillery" and "clothing is by no means necessary" will at least pique the interest of the search engines. But, again, I don't know. It's all Inter-Magic.