I feel as though I deserved a trip to Florida (even if it was partially a work trip) this past week. It’s been a rough few months. So, taking off for Sarasota seemed like a really excellent idea.
I’d been to Sarasota a couple of times briefly before, but this time really got a chance to explore the city and its environs. The food (yay grouper!), the sunsets, the balmy winter temperature, the interesting flora, the many variations of blue-green-gray on the bay and gulf… what’s not to like?
A couple of highlights and then the rest in photos… Kayaking with buddies Arlene, Pete and Carol on Longboat Key. Visiting the Marie Selby Botanical Garden’s historic Spanish Point location (though we hear the downtown location is even better). Free Monday admission to the amazing Ringling Art Museum and grounds. And sunsets on Siesta Key and the downtown Bayfront Park. Not to mention soaking in hotel hot tubs and eating delicious fresh fish and ethnic delights. Oh, and visiting my grad school buddy Eleanor, who cooked us dinner.
It was worth risking COVID amid the now mostly unmasked masses in Florida. It was worth risking sunburn on our winter-white bodies. It was worth the several more pounds I came home with (and I’m not talking about in my suitcase)!
The trip will get me through to the Spring that is sure to come here soon (despite the groundhog’s silly predictions).
Courtyard of the Ringling Art Museum. A classic “Steve eats food” shot, at a small Salvadoran pupuseria one evening. The downtown eating scene was just too hectic and crowded for us (though it was fun to walk around there). Thank goodness for smartphone searches.Our kayak group on a beach break. And yes, I cannot kayak without getting totally soaked.Boat building workshop at the Marie Selby museum. Volunteers build small boats like this one, which had a very impressive array of laminated woods. Steve “interacts” (sort of) with augmented reality art at the Marie Selby garden. In other words, those things were not really there in real life. It’s new fangled art, you know. Under the banyans on the grounds of the Ringling. Eagles and their 40-year old nest, encountered by my friend Lisa and I on a break from our meeting at the University of South Florida. Apparently (according to an informative passerby) this nest saved the land around it from development, and has been passed between eagles and ospreys for all those years.One of fifty juried art works reproduced large and displayed at the Bayfront Park for the exhibition, Embracing our Differences. (The lower portions of my new friends Roy and Margaret can be seen viewing another panel at left!)Sunet on Siesta Key beach. My friend Kim told me the sand there is like sugar. She wasn’t making that up.Sunset at Bayfront Park. And so ends our Sarasota adventure!
