Last day in Florida

Well, our vacation is drawing to a close, but not without some great memories.  We will truly miss views like these in the coming weeks.

The Airbnb condo has worked out great.  It was very nice to be so close to the beach that we can hear the ocean waves in our living room.   We know of a lot of things to do in this area so that kept us busy on days where we had nothing else planned.  We also revisited some restaurants that we like.  Tonight, that was PJ's Oyster Bar.    

So tomorrow we have to get up a bit early to catch our 11:30 flight back to Detroit.  I hope you have appreciated traveling vicariously with us!

Florida Day 7

 WOW!  Can our Florida tip be ending so soon?  Just 1 more full day, then we fly home.

Today we decided to visit Tiger Town in Lakeland to watch the Detroit Tigers practice.  The gates opened at 9:30 am, but players did not come out onto the field until after 10 am. On the right is a nice picture of Miguel Cabrera walking out, and a later one (bottom right) when we watched him take batting practice. 

The whole practice seemed to be rather laid back.  It had some structure as the players spent about 30 minutes each on a few drills, but overall the atmosphere was rather loose. It was very spread out across several practice fields, but we had many of the main players practicing on the field in front of us (Miggy, Spencer Torkelson, Austin Meadows, and Jonathan Schoop) along with others.  No player names or numbers on jerseys, so it was hard to tell who was who!  

At 11:45, practice was breaking up so we headed out for lunch at Five Guys and the drive back to Treasure Island.  Nothing planned for tomorrow, except the dreaded packing session. 

Florida Day 6

Today we decided to go to the Manatee Viewing Center at the Big Bend power plant at Apollo Beach.  In the past when we've gone here, there was an uncountable number of manatees below the viewing platform.  But today, much to our surprise, there were NONE!  We asked and were told this was due to the water being fairly warm. 

There is a long walkway leading west from the visitor center and when we walked out there, we did see two small manatees in the water (picture on the left). Next we visited the stingray tank and watched them swim around.   I did manage to touch one on the wing as it swam by. 

Our afternoon activity was another beach walk.  We went 1 1/2 miles to near the southern end of Treasure Island and back. I just can't get tired of doing walks like this!! 

Tomorrow we are headed to Lakeland to watch the Detroit Tigers practice.  That should make for a fun day!

Florida Day 5

Not much to write about today so this will be short. We slept in, then took a half hour morning beach walk.   We were amazing to see this blue heron hanging out so close to people! It was walking the beach and I was barely 10' from it.   Many other people were close by so it was obviously quite the brave bird. Maybe it was waiting for a fisherman to toss him a treat. 

Later in the day we got out the beach chairs and enjoyed some time sitting on the beach. 

Mary got another good sunset picture this evening.  Some clouds were rolling in which made for a bit of an intriguing picture.

Nothing much planned for tomorrow, although we might go see the manatees at Apollo Beach.  And we might go to Lakeland to watch Detroit Tigers practice on Tuesday.

Florida Day 4

 We had another quiet day today, with no planned activities.   So it's rather short entry, but at least there are some cool pictures!

On our morning walk, we headed back toward the breakwater that I've written about before. This picture clearly shows how effective it is at protecting the beach from erosion. 

You can also see what a pretty day it was with that clear blue sky!

The waves today were much higher than previous days. This brought out a whole lot of surfers.  It was fun watching them try to ride the waves;  a few of them were pretty good, but most fell quickly.  It was neat seeing a dad with his two little girls, all in wetsuits with small surf boards.   It was so cute.

We've seen three great, cloudless sunsets.  (No sunset pictures last night since we were in the concert.)  Mary has taken several great pictures of all of them, with this being a prime example.

Florida Day 3

The third day of our vacation consisted of two planned activities a a few ad hoc ones.

The morning started with a beautiful, warm beach walk.  We love to walk the beach and hear the waves breaking on the shore,. I tried to upload a 22 second video of the waves, but it is not working.  So very relaxing to hear!

Since dinner was to be early, we decided on going to brunch at the Frog Pond restaurant, a place we have enjoyed many times in the past.  However as we were about to leave, we experienced a power outage.  It turns out a power line was across the only road out of our peninsula so our brunch plans were delayed.   But after 45 minutes it was cleared as we headed out to the restaurant where we enjoyed Monte Cristo omelets.

In the afternoon we headed for Sarasota for a Florida DTE Retiree dinner at Yoder's Amish Restaurant.  It was nice to catch up with friends.   We planned to eat at 4:30 pm since this restaurant often has very long lines and we did not want to miss our concert. Sure enough, when we finished dinner, the line was way out the door! 

After dinner we headed for a Jim Curry concert at a local high school auditorium.  We always enjoy these shows, filled with John Denver music, and this one lived up to our expectations.  They encourage singing along and many in the audience, including us, did just that.

We arrived early, and Jim and Anne spotted us in the audience and came out to talk.  After the concert we hung around and talked to them for quite a while, and were the last ones to leave.  It was great catching up with what they have going on with their concert tours.

We had an hour-long drive back to the condo across the Sunshine Skyway bridge which was beautifully lit up.  It was tough getting the camera to focus as we drove along, but this picture shows you the general idea.  

So we had a long, but very enjoyable day!  Nothing planned for today, but I'm sure a beach walk will work its way into our plans.

A Quiet Beach Day

 We had nothing special planned today so we improvised and visited some places we liked in the past.

Our day started with a 2 mile beach walk.  We spotted this Valentine's Day leftover, and I could not resist getting a picture of my Valentine standing inside it.   On the right is a picture (click to enlarge) showing the intense beach erosion.  In the past, some group had the foresight to build the brick breakwater which protected the beach behind it.  But on this side, erosion from this year's hurricanes was pretty severe.  Many wooden ramps which allowed people walk to the beach in this section were washed away. 

While walking, I spotted the unusual shell on the left; one shell with some smaller shells stuck to it!  Speaking of shells, this is a great beach for a shell collector.  It is very hard to walk this beach without crunching them, as you can see on the right.  You definitely need some beach shoes to walk in this area!

After lunch we headed for the Seaside Seabird Sanctuary.  It's a rescue place for injured seabirds and has a large number of bird enclosures on site, separated by type of bird.  And there are lots of other birds hanging around like this fellow on the right.  Many of the enclosures have high roofs so the birds can fly around inside them.  They even had a bald eagle and several owls.

After the sanctuary we did some shopping at John's Pass Village before having supper at Mad Beach Craft Brewing.  After we got back to our condo we headed out to watch a beautiful, cloudless sunset.

Tomorrow we are headed to Sarasota for dinner with fellow DTE retirees Irene Chmura and John Olson with John's wife, before going to a Jim Curry Band concert in Sarasota.  

Golfing Day

 

Today I drove to Rotunda West where my golfing buddy, John, has his second house.  After a quick lunch, we played the course where he lives.  It's one of 5 courses there. It was great getting caught up with him and what's going on  with his family.  We were having such a great time I neglected to get a picture of us on the course. That's how it goes sometimes.  After golf, I had dinner with John and his wife, then headed back to the condo.  I was gone from 9am until 8pm so it made for a kind of a long day, especially with all the traffic congestion on I-75.

While I was on my golfing trip, Mary had a relaxing day on the beach. She took two long walks on the beach.  On one, she took this picture of these interesting rocks on the shoreline.  The other picture is our condo complex.  It was a great day for enjoying the sunshine, which she did.

Nothing much planned for tomorrow.  A few walks on the beach and some sightseeing.  More to tell in then next post!

Arriving in Florida

Our Florida vacation started today with a flight to Tampa and driving to our Airbnb condo on the beach at Treasure Island.   We had a comfortable mid-morning flight from Detroit to Tampa, and the rental car pickup afterwards went smooth. 

The picture on the upper right is the view of the Gulf from our balcony.  Before dinner we took a walk on the beach and loved hearing the sounds of the waves.   The beach in this area was covered with a lot of shells so we were glad to have our tennis shoes on.  

As we returned from dinner the sun was setting so I caught this picture. 

Golf tomorrow with my golfing buddy, John!