Sarasota Weekend

Last weekend, we escaped Charlotte for a little warmer weather down in Sarasota and visited Paul and Retta. Russ flew in from San Francisco and we all had a great time and stayed pretty busy. The past two trips we have gone on, I have gotten food poisoning (never had it before in my life and then at 28 I get it twice in one year, both times on vacation, go figure), but I managed to stop my streak here thankfully.

On Friday morning, Retta and I went shopping and then we met up with the guys to do a tour of Sarasota and the neighboring keys. The first stop was to grab some lunch at The Salty Dog on Siesta Key. We were fortunate enough to get a table outside on the water. Their specialty is “The Salty Dog” which is a fried hot dog:

I am not that adventurous, so I stuck with a grilled grouper sandwich, but apparently the Salty Dog is pretty good if you are into hot dogs.

Here are some pics of us at lunch:

 

Afterwards, we drove over to St.Armands Key and drove around the famous St.Armands Circle. Note to self, next time we are here, and John wants to play golf, just take me to St.Armands and I will do just fine! The shops and restaurants looked great so it would be fun to spend an afternoon here.

We headed over to Casey Key to take in Nokomis Beach. Something about the sand on this beach was different, it felt like I was walking on a bed of flour, it was so soft! There were a few people in the water, but most were just out enjoying the day. The temps have been so cold in FL that this was the first sunny day in weeks.

After Nokomis, we drove down to Venice Beach to walk around the town and check out the huge banyan tree. We had to take the obligatory sit in the tree pic

 and then John and Russ took it a step further..

Venice Beach was really pretty too, we took a walk out on the pier this time instead of walking in the sand. There were people out on the beach looking for shark teeth with cage like contraptions on the end of a metal pole because I guess this is one of the top beaches for finding shark teeth.

We headed to dinner after Venice Beach and went to Philippi Creek Oyster Bar. I had peel and eat shrimp, yum! It tasted so fresh! It was a treat to get seafood twice in one day.

On Saturday, we took in the Ringling Museum. Sarasota was home to John and Mable Ringling (of the Ringling Bros Circus). You could spend a full day at this place if you took in everything, there is an art museum, theater, rose garden, the Ca d’Zan mansion, and the miniature circus. Since there was an all important Michgan State basketball game on at 3:30, we decided to just do the miniature circus museum and the Ca d’Zan mansion. I have had an appreciation for miniatures ever since my grandmother and mom made a dollhouse for me when I was young. This was not just a regular dollhouse you buy at Toys R Us, but a real, homemade dollhouse. This thing had wood siding, shutters, window treatments, wallpaper, electrical work (I could actually turn on the lights!), furniture, small paintings for the wall, a wooden staircase etc. I still have it and I will always treasure that dollhouse. I also love homes. Especially touring historic homes, I love imagining the people that lived in them, what their lives were like, how they used the furniture, etc., so both of these activities were right up my alley.

The miniature circus was really impressive and my pictures hardly do it justice. The detail was amazing. It was created by a master model maker over a period of 50 years! The replica starts with the trains that transport everything to set up the circus and goes through all the stages of set up to the final circus tent. Here are the pictures. They even had an area for the restrooms!  Please click on them to enlarge.

Check out the restroom!

The detail did not stop at the miniature museum. Next we toured the Ca d’Zan Mansion which the Ringling’s built between 1924-1926. The home was styled in a Venetian Gothic manner and had very intricate design detail work that you don’t find on homes of today.

 

We had a wonderful time! There sure is alot to do in that area and we look forward to future visits!

PS Not sure why my pictures are all over the place, I uploaded and "easy picture" option on blogger and apparently it is not that easy.