I love to visit Emerson Point in Palmetto and get my dose of nature.  I escape down the shoreline path, or take one of the many marked trails, or boardwalks, and around each bend I might see a new bird, spot a butterfly, or find a new flower.

Emerson Point is located on Snead Island where the Manatee River meets Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.  It is a quiet retreat rich in nature and history. Early Native Americans harvested the water's bounty here and built great shell mounds. Later, Europeans settled here. Today, fishermen cast their lines near the mouth of the river, where egrets and herons also fish.

                                                                       
Written by Lucy Noe

​Haslam’s Book Store on Central Avenue in Saint Petersburg is big. How big? Big enough to contain more than 300,000 books. Books cover nearly every inside surface from top to bottom, and for those of us that love books, being in Haslam’s is like being a kid in a candy store (or like anybody in a candy store, really). Often coming in brightly-colored covers just like candy, every book contains an entire world of fun that can last many weeks or longer (and yet has zero calories).
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Haslam’s is so big that they actually have a store map. One could otherwise be lost for years between the seemingly endless shelves. It would not surprise me if there were still customers in the back that haven’t seen the sun since opening day. There might be generations of descendants of the original book browsers deep in the bowels of the place (hmmm…that sounds like an idea for a book).

Haslam’s was started in 1933 by John and Mary Haslam and is now in its third generation of the family and at its fourth location. The owners have been active in the community, conducting field trips, book fairs, and once even had a show on PBS.

One can find practically any subject covered in Haslam’s. There is an entire room devoted to history. There is a room for psychology and self-help. There are sections for computer science and for physics. There are lots of art books. There are new books and old books, including rare books perhaps not found anywhere else you are ever likely to be. There are long-forgotten science fiction and fantasy titles from the forties, fifties, and sixties. Each book opens up a new world, and Haslam’s is a world of books. Haslam’s is a hidden treasure itself filled with many smaller hidden treasures.

2025 Central Avenue, St. Petersburg, Florida
Haslams.com

Written by Daniel Noe, ChampionOfTheGalaxy.com