Exploration Report

We've been taking advantage of our rental car and exploring a lot of towns. 
The report so far:
Siesta Key:  Beautiful beach, small area, tough parking in town.
Sarasota:  Too big for us.
Osprey:  Great state park!  Not much else.
Nokomis:  Nice park, no town.
Venice:  Bingo!  Small town but not in the boonies, large town amenities without a ton of stoplights and traffic.  The Legacy Bike Trail starts here and goes all the way to Sarasota.  Most streets have bike lanes.  Parking is free at city parks and the pier parking lot and on all streets.  Venice Beach is great and parking is free there too!
Englewood:  Great beach, couple of nice beach bars but pay to park.  Other than the beach area it looks pretty depressed. 
Rotundra West:  Ghost Town!
Port Charlotte:  Nice park but very small not great beach area.  The city itself is too big for our liking.
Punta Gorda:  Good size town, nice places to eat and hang out but no beach.. bummer.

 North Jetty is in Nokomis, South jetty is in Venice.  You can through a rock across the channel but it takes 10 - 15 minutes to drive from one to the other.

 View of south jetty from north jetty, Venice in the background.

 Walk, fish and picnic on the jetty. 

 Lots of beach areas at North Jetty Park with free parking!

 Playground area

 South Jetty Marina.

 Great spots to hang out.

 Secluded picnic area on the water

Venice has a "Crows Nest" too!

View from the Crows Nest.

 Here's where Bill and Marlene can hang.

 Chicken Picatta a la RV!

 View from Harpoon Harry's in Punta Gorda.

 

 Charlotte Harbor Bridge

 Moscow Oysters  for lunch,  Vodka, Horseradish sauce and caviar.  Awesome, I had extra vodka on the side!

 Harpoon Harry's gets pretty crowded!

 Fake beach in Ponce de Leon Park

 Fisherman's Village  Punta Gorda

                                         Me and Ponce


Well that's the report so far. 
We like it so much here in Venice, we're going to hang around.  We booked a week at the Rambler's Resort RV Park in Venice for next week. 
Stay tuned!

Weekly Update

Time for whats turning out to be our weekly update. From Palm Harbor we headed to Largo to see Bobby and Carol, just in time for Gavin's 13^th birthday party at the Golden Corral, woo whoo! Since we were in Largo we watched the Pats game at Cookie and Sue's with Angelo. Cookie cooked up some excellent grouper and gulf shrimp, great time. 

                                          Lounging at Bobby's pool

                                                         Golden Corral, Fine dining...

                                                         The Largo Girls

                                                Beach day with Cookie and Sue

                                                           and Angelo!

On Monday we moved on to Sarasota. We ate dinner and spent the night at the Elks there, explored Siesta Key, the sand here really does rival Wingaersheek.

                                                         Skyway Bridge

                                                            Siesta Key

                                                    Soft, white sand and Sandi

 From there we checked out Nokomis beach and Venice beach and landed three days at the state park in Osprey, great park with lots of hiking trails. I got to see my first bald eagle! flew by me while I was taking out the trash, sorry I didn't have my camera with me.

                                         Dead fish on Caspersen Beach, Red tide kills fish here.
                                          We did find a couple of sharks teeth.

                                          Love sidewalk dining in downtown Venice

                                         The turtles are very friendly here!

                                     You have to walk through the outdoor bar at Sharky's
                                   restaurant to get to the pier.  Sharky has a good thing going!

                                                        Making friends

                                               Entrance to downtown

We are currently spending the weekend at the Venice Elks, water and electricity for 20 bucks a night. We made it in time for Friday afternoon barbeque and Friday evening fish fry, really good food. 

Sandi got some wheels today (thanks Callee) so we'll be expanding our exploration range. We have next week booked in Oscar Sheareer state park so the car will be great for taking day trips. We do like this area. Its not too crowed but still has plenty of amenities and downtown is special with outdoor dinning and free parking. 

                                           Hiking in the park

                                         Can you make out the woodpecker in this photo?
                                         He's over 2 feet long!

                                             Live Oak complete with Spanish Moss

Palm Harbor

Caught my first saltwater speckled trout!

 

Great time in Palm Harbor, Andy and Giovanna made us feel like royalty! Boating, fishing great home cooking and eating got this vacation off to a flying start!

Heading out through the canal, what a beautiful place

I thought Sandi was going to steal this dog!

Lots of shells on this beach

                                                             Captain Andy

                                         First Mate Marianna

Me and the girls

Jelly Fish!

Our own private island!

Well we had to share it with these guys.

                                         Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!

                                              Great looking sunsets

                                           Sandi and her new friend on Andy's dock

Went to a NY style deli, look at the size of that corned beef sandwich!  All for 10 bucks including dessert!