Road Trip - Day 4

This is so not a bad way to start the morning. Michael was all excited because in just a couple of days, he'd dunked himself in both the Atlantic and the Gulf. Life is full.



No need for shoes, just a saunter straight to the beach. Well, actually water shoes might have been nice, it's a bit shelly/pebbly here (Redington Shores).



You really had to be careful where you walked because little sting rays were buried in the sand everywhere, right at ankle level.

Can you tell that there are 4 different kinds of birds in this photo?

Saturday morning traffic. That truck was for animal/marine-life rescue. The sand is so hard, people even bike on it.

And then it was back in the car by 9:30am. We took a slight detour toward St. Petersburg to see if it was as bad as inland-Clearwater, in case we needed to shop for things as residents of its shore communities. It was not, and everything we could possibly need was on one street. Then we went over a beautiful bridge (toll).



On the other side was a rather nice little town, Bradenton/Manatee. It was an artsy place, with an aquarium, theater, etc., and as we drove past, we could see people sitting at outdoor cafes in what looked like old town. I wish we'd had time to explore a bit, but we made a note that we liked it and might Google Earth it further. The beaches that came after were pretty and beachy, but we couldn't see what we'd do for a living in the area.



Pretty paths too.

Look at the list of Do's vs. Don'ts. Which is longer? And even most of the Do's are really Don'ts. Only in the US.

We surprisingly liked Sarasota - it was a city without the high rises and even the suburbs weren't overly suburby. The Lido Beach area was fun, but very crowded. It eventually got a bit too ritzy for us (Siesta Key), but that area might have provided Michael a job. Then we were back in the land of 3-D. By now, we were just yelling "No!" at each other whenever we entered a place that didn't meet muster. We took a peek at Venice beach and that (and its surroundings) got a resounding No!



We were trying to force ourselves to like this area (Venice, Englewood, Fort Myers, Cape Coral) because we have friends living nearby, but just couldn't. We did, however, have a fun detour. One of my Idiot fans, who I've been penpaling with, happened to be in the area to check on a dream boat he (and his wife and little pooch, Boo Boo) are building (well, having built). We got together for lunch at a great place on Manasota Key, just off Englewood. Good times.

Then we paid $6 to go to Sannibel Island to see how its supposed top-5 beach in the country compared to what we'd seen. The island was very lush, so lush we could rarely see the houses (good for them, bad for us).

Beach access cost $, so we ran quickly to the beach to take a look. It was narrow and crowded (off-season). Shrug. They're narrower than they look in that photo and beach access was very limited. Walking the roads was dangerous in places, although there were trails and bike lanes in some areas.

The island was pretty with quirky places to shop and eat (something rare in any place we'd been in FL - Key West is close), but it was really hot (like Key West). There was nary a breeze anywhere. You had to drive so slowly (15-30mph) on curvy roads to get anywhere, working on the island (if it involved driving) would be pretty frustrating. We could ride our mopeds, at least. If we got a job on Sannibel or Captiva, we might be up for it, but we weren't completely sold.

You'll note that we have lots of photos with menacing storm cells around, but we only got rained on twice the whole trip, and only for a few minutes. Oddly, every time we saw a rainbow, there was a second rainbow shadowing it.


Ft. Myers Beach was up next. I'd seen affordable rentals on Craig's List for this beach. We could see why. A wide mix of housing was interspersed among various business - some loud. This was a much younger crowd. There was lots of partying going on. We liked that there were a few cute places to just hang out and snack or drink (again, a rarity on any beach in FL), but we'd have to live a little farther south than the main touristy area. The housing got better, so probably gets more expensive. The beach was nice and wide, like Clearwater/Indian Shores. Again, the problem was what we'd do there for a living. We didn't see resorts or upscale housing or developments around.



A quick look at Bonita Springs - beach narrow and very shelly/hard. Town bleh. No!

And then we headed for Naples, our last stop before turning back toward Key West, tired and ready for the trip to be over. We were on info overload and sick of the car. Somehow we'd gotten off the gulf, which normally meant ugliness, but we were shocked to see stores normally found on the west coast (Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, CA Pizza Kitchen, Cheesecake Factory, etc.). It wasn't too bad. When we swung down to the high rises on the beach, we thought they looked clean and liked the cute restaurants on the canals. The beach was narrow(ish) but soft, there were park trails throughout, and before we were all said and done, we drove past a quaint old/historic town where people were sitting outside and enjoying cocktails. Hmmm....

The ride back across the state (this was definitely not the most efficient way of conducting this trip) was pretty cool (literally, at one point the temp was down to 78°) as we went through the Everglades. It was fun to look for animals (panthers?! alligators, etc.), but we were also a little nervous about one becoming part of our car-rental grill. We didn't see any wildlife, but the storms surrounding us were insane. Luckily, none went directly over us.

We had really hoped to get to the Overseas Hwy by dusk, but we missed that goal by about an hour. We didn't get there until after 8pm, and then we had another 3 hours ahead of us. Oy. Apparently we had missed some pretty ugly weather in Key West earlier in the day, but we only had lightning flashes during our slog toward the city.

In 3 days (we didn't travel much for 1 day of the 4), we went roughly 1,200 miles. Yes, it feels like it.

We pulled up to the apartment at 11:15pm. It was a little unnerving to see the clocks blinking on everything, indicating a power outage, when the cats had been on an electric feeder, but the cats didn't look any thinner and hadn't eaten each other (they were absurdly happy to see us though - lots of purring, grrrting, kneading, and cuddling). We were a little hyper initially too, so didn't go to sleep until 1am. An hour later, the neighbor and a friend came clomping up the stairs and slammed every door possible. And then had sex. Long, loud, drunk sex. Four times (yes, I was counting). Well, goody for them. Grr. Three hours later, we had to get up and return the rental car. Zzzzzzzzz.

We have a lot of thinking (& researching) to do (like that hasn't been what we've been doing). Nothing is off the table. Nowhere felt like home. We've got a top 4 (2 on each coast), and a couple of backups (all on the gulf), but overall didn't really feel it. We're going to do a list of pros/cons of all the places (and keep looking at alternatives outside the state/country). I'll post them later for those of you interested in the process. When you add in everything we have to consider (feel, work, entertainment, cost - and how different are any of these places in the in-season?), it feels like picking the least worst of four politicians at the moment.