Anna Maria Island

One thing I forgot to mention about yesterday is that at one point we turned onto a street lined with very large banyan trees, and there were all these stands run by Latino people selling stuff for Valentine's Day, like flowers and stuffed animals. Also, earlier in our trip, somewhere in Florida (Travalon thinks it was on the way to New Port Richie), we passed a road called The Lord's Way, which was funny enough, but it was really hilarious to see that the next road was called A Better Way!

This morning our hotel room in Sarasota faced the highway, but we discovered when we went down to breakfast that the other side overlooked a marina. Here is their view.

Right by the hotel there was a palm tree with these interesting-looking fruits. They almost look like deadly weapons. Could they be edible?

Our neighbor had told Travalon that Anna Maria Island is very beautiful, so we drove there this morning and stopped for coffee at a place near the north tip of the island. This was our view as we sipped our iced coffees.

At the very top of the island is Bean Point Beach. There were tons of gulls and terns there.

The beach is gorgeous. Here is a shot of me on it.

There were also these small cattle egrets hanging out on the beach.

We tried to walk to the pier with a restaurant on it, but this beautiful point is where private property began, so we had to walk on the road.

Here are an ibis (in front) and an egret.

From the pier we could see this cargo ship.

And pelicans flying around and swimming. The shots of the flying ones didn't turn out as well.

This cattle egret was so close to us on the pier.

We saw a sailboat. I also saw a manatee, but Travalon wasn't there at the moment with his camera.

We ate lunch on the front porch of the restaurant, then we went down to the fishing pier, and a girl took our photo.

We could see this island in the distance.

We drove over this bridge, the Sunshine Skyway, on our way south.

You can just make out St. Petersburg behind this sailboat.

Here is the shoreline as seen from the pier.

This cattle egret was sitting right where it could watch us eat lunch (seafood, of course - I had a mahi mahi sandwich and Travalon had fried oysters), then after we finished, it flew to the roof of the restaurant where it could still watch us.

Another pelican.

Here is a shot of the restaurant. We sat on the balcony on the left side in this photo.

As we walked back to the car, we saw this house decorated for Valentine's Day.

 

As we drove off of Anna Maria Island, the drawbridge suddenly went up, so Travalon had time to take some photos. This is an island we could see from the bridge.

This is the catamaran the bridge went up for.

And this is the Sunshine Skyway again.

We met our neighbor for malts at an old-fashioned malt and burger joint. I had a cherry one. This Archie picture was on the wall.

After that we went antiquing, and I bought four rosaries. Travalon bought a Mr. Magoo doll. Sorry, no photos yet. 

Then Travalon and I hit the road in earnest, but we did stop at the Florida Citrus Center because it advertised live baby gators:

And here they are! No mama around to squeak at us.

We bought some key lime cookies and this choc-o-gator.

We also drove through Micanopy, a very old town. Everything was closed by then, but Travalon took this shot of an interesting-looking shop. The town is very artsy.

We also stopped at a rest stop with this unnerving sign. (We didn't see any snakes.)

We stopped at a barbecue place called Sonny's for dinner, and everything on the menu was about 1400 calories, except for a grilled chicken sandwich that was under 400. Sold! When we finally got to our hotel just outside of Tallahassee, the lobby had this fascinating fireplace.

The flames are red and blue! Which is even more interesting because one of the rosaries I got today has clear crystal beads for the Hail Marys and red and blue beads for the Our Fathers. It's like there's a theme.

Famous Hat