Weekend

Looking back at our trip, since we started in December, we couldn't think of a single day when it rained the entire day. Well, Saturday was our first and we aren't talking about sprinkles. We're saying the big, fat, heavy rain. The kind that you know if you walk out you are going to get wet. We decided to go out anyway and drive south to explore two keys. Longboat Key and Lido Key. It seems that Longboat Key is much bigger than Bradenton but there is mostly houses and big hotels. No shops or restaurants. For that you have to drive further south to Lido Key which sits right off of Sarasota. That is a nice area. We will have to come back and explore Sarasota and its neighborhoods in the future. Libo Key has tons of restaurants and shops and the Beach's are nice and big. Can't take credit for this masterpiece we found on the beach but I thought I would share it with you.

Sarasota, from the bridge.


Once you come off the bridge into Sarasota there is this "Art" piece there to greet you. Is this any indication of how bad their traffic gets?


After a day of driving around and getting wet we headed home to get warm and dry.

Easter Sunday turned into a beautiful day so we got up early and were excited to go outside and enjoy the sunshine. We decided to go for a run and then layout on the beach to chill for the afternoon. We took off for a short 2 mile run along the beach trail. Because of the holiday it seemed that everyone was out with their grills under the shade trees to meet up with family and make a day of it at the beach. We also noticed that there were Police, Sheriff and Gang Task Units everywhere, as well. They were on bikes, ATV's and on foot. Don't know why there are so many. The run and the afternoon on the beach were great. Nothing like taking the fat Sunday newspaper and sitting under the umbrella and reading. My kind of day. When we got back to RH we fired up the grill and cooked up our own Easter Sunday banquet. Steak kabobs with potatoes and salad. As the evening was winding down the news came on and the first thing they talked about was how there was so much police presence at Bradenton Beach this year. Yeah, we saw that. Why? Well, it turns out that in years past they have had a really bad problem with gangs on that particular beach and it seems that the last two years there was always a shoot-em-up gang fight at the beach. Thankfully, not this year. That explains it! Ok, so for the other 364 days out of the year Bradenton is beautiful. We were talking and it didn't seem like a gang area. No graffiti anywhere, no groups of people hanging around and the area is always very clean. Who figured?

Got'a go! It's sunny and mid 70's. Busy schedule today.