I'm still riding the vacation high and holding on for as long as I can. To save everyone from a novel of a post I'm going to break vacation up into 3 separate posts of the places we visited- starting with this post; our Sarasota/Venice visit!
We took a red-eye flight out of Sacramento Friday night and landed in Sarasota at 11:30AM Saturday morning. We couldn't check into our hotel until later in the evening so we headed straight to the Siesta Key Beach!
The beach was packed but still super beautiful. We were both exhausted from the redeye flight so it was heavenly to lay out and take a little siesta! (Note to self: stooooop booking redeye flights, you never actually sleep on those!)
In typical Florida fashion, we got chased off the beach by an afternoon storm but by that time we were able to get into our hotel. So we did a few groceries, checked in and got some dinner.
I'm not a foodie (unless we're talking about dessert) and I'm definitely not a seafood eater. However, Gray is both, so a lot of the restaurants we picked out had a heavy focus on seafood for him. And this is how we ended up at the Crow's Nest. We were lucky enough to get a window seat to take in the harbor which was really nice to take in the scenery.
The next day we got up and drove up to Bradenton to meet up with my college bestie, Anna! Anna is a Marine Mammal Biologist for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (phew that's a mouthful- just know she's a badass). My one job for Anna was I wanted to see some manatees- and oh my did she deliver!
This time of the year it's harder to predict where the manatees will be because as the waters warm up the manatees move out and around more. Thankfully our personal marine mammal biologist had the intel on a "breeding herd" so we headed over to check it out. Sure enough, we arrived to find 10 plus manatees hanging out! IT WAS AMAZING!
This was my first time ever seeing them out in the wild and I was soooo excited! I made poor Anna work overtime and answer alllll of my questions. It also brought me so much joy to see her in her field working! Anna and I got our degrees in Zoology together, rescued and rehabilitated sea lions together, and performed soooo many necropsies together. Manatees were ALWAYS Anna's favorite animal and to see that she's become a leading marine mammal biologist working with them is amazing!
I could have stood there all day watching the manatees but peeled away to get lunch in Anna Marie and then down to Venice Beach and on the hunt for shark teeth!
Back in CA, Anna and I used to walk the beaches hunting for agates and this was just like that!
I was blown away by how many teeth we were able to find and it's no wonder why Venice Beach is known as the "Shark Tooth Capital of the World". It was soooo good to spend a day just hanging out with Anna. We had not seen each other in years but it felt as if it was just yesterday when I last saw her.
That night for dinner I snuck in a trip to Joey D'S Chicago Style Eatery & Pizzeria- because you can take the girl out of Chicago, but you can't take the Chicago out of the girl. 🍕
The next day, Gray and I checked out Venice Ave. The shops were really cute and I had the BEST croissant from the bakery there.
Seriously- the last time I had a croissant that good was in Italy! Also, how cute is this alligator bread?! 🐊
Then we spent our last day in Venice back at the beach hunting for shark teeth and snorkeling around the little reefs. (and getting more sun 🥵️)
We got dinner at the Waterside Grill, checked out the pier for the sunset, and then got ice cream in town. It was the perfect last day.
We both really liked Venice and the surrounding area and can't wait to visit again! Hopefully sooner rather than later!
Next stop- Palm Beach!
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