Day 2 – Should we stay or should we go?

North America » United States » Florida » Ellenton
April 9th 2013

Published: April 10th 2013

I am convinced Sarasota has some voodoo magic going on. The original plan was that Tuesday would be out last full day here and Wednesday morning we would check out and head Northeast.

However it just seems from breakfast on there was this pull to make us stay. We biked to The Breakfast House which is in the middle of the Historic Sarasota District which we came to learn in the last year or so has been emerging into a new destination area with little art galleries and consignment shops and restaurants revitalizing the neighborhood.

Breakfast was good but the staff were excellent, so warm and friendly and eager to share tips on where to go for the best experiences and where to go for the best fish at affordable prices. This warm local welcome was the start of our decision to spend the rest of the trip here. After breakfast we walked the immediate area which was a cluster of brightly painted cottages offering local artists wares, high end junk shops with charming knick knacks and eclectic accessory shops.

What was so impressive was how in each store we went into we had such a warm welcome from the proprietor and engaged in conversations and then just like at Breakfast House, given tips of places to go for a great trip. It was just so refreshing to experience locals who were invested in their visitors having a great time. We got so many tips that it was starting to become obvious that we were not going to be able to do all of it by Wednesday morning.

On the bike ride back to the hotel, we spotted a sign for the Sarasota Trial and decided to explore and ended up a nice, scenic walk/bike path that ran along the bay and we got to see pelicans diving for fish, sail boats heading out to sea. It was so serene and a beautiful path for a morning ride. It was also along this ride we saw a theatre advertising Drag Queen Bingo on Friday and we were very intrigued…another reason to stay around and investigate.

We loaded the bikes and then made our way up to Ellenton, FL to find an antique mall which I had discovered 7 years ago when my sister Elena and I had driven through the area on our way to Miami from Tampa. I had always wanted to go back, as on my first trip I got an amazing white cabinet that Jay and I restored so it was a happy momento of that trip.

We took the scenic drive through neighborhoods and it gave us a better sense of the area. Once we hit Ellenton we saw lots of antique malls, consignment stores, junk stores and we knew we could probably spend hours exploring this area. We made it to the Antique Feed Store Antique Mall and it was just as I remembered it, lots of neat stuff but for us no great finds on this visit.

Right as we were leaving I got an email that my nephew was available for dinner, so we decided to go ahead and head up to his area since it was an hour drive away. So we tucked the guide on all the antique spots in Ellenton in our back pack and headed to Redington Beach, FL, somewhere we had never heard of before.

Redington is definitely like the Jersey Shore of FL – lots of small hotel/motels, mini-golf, cheap pizza, tourist shops, bike rental shops and basic shore town stuff.

We realized on our way to see David, that we still hadn’t hit the beach or gotten a really good look at Sarasota…so it was on the drive over the Skyway Bridge that we looked up the nearest Starbucks so we could get online to Priceline and see if we could book our same hotel for the three days we had planned on staying in another part of Fl. We did get it for $17 more a day than we paid for our first two days which was still over 60%!l(MISSING)ess than advertised rate. There are some awesome bike trails as well that we are looking forward to checking out.

We enjoyed a good visit with David, who can resist the opportunity for a game of mini-golf? On our way back to Sarasota we drove through the coastal areas before hitting the scenic Skyway bridge. Of course we got lured in by all of the homemade ice cream signs we saw. We chose one called Scoops advertising 60 hand made flavors…….poor Scoops, while their ice cream was good, the crabby lady behind the counter kind of gave the taste a sour note. She was not thrilled by Jay’s request to sample the unusual flavors they offered, then she implied my choice of two flavors of ice cream to be the wrong combination. Oh well perhaps years of churning that hand made ice cream has gone straight to her brain.

Despite it being late when we got back to the hotel, we decided to drive a route recommended to us in the morning by the hostess of The Breakfast House. It involves a bridge over to the St. Armand’s area and Lido Beach where we were told if you are lucky can find perfect sand dollars. This has me intrigued since I have always found shells and sea glass but never a sand dollar on the beach.

Since It might rain on Thursday and Friday, Wednesday is our best option to bike to the beach. St. Armand’s Circle is very beautiful, with lots of café’s, high end retail stores, jewelry stores and some unique retails spots like a spice exchange. It was a nice to walk around it and get our bearings.

So our Wednesday plan at the moment is to bike to breakfast, bike to St Armand’s Circle and Lido Beach. Do a little shopping and then bike back to the hotel and then do a late lunch at Yoder’s an Amish restaurant.

We shall see how this plan works out.

Places we visited on Tuesday

http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-breakfast-house-sarasota-2

http://www.yelp.com/biz/antique-feed-store-mall-the-ellenton

http://www.yelp.com/biz/scoops-st-pete-beach

http://www.yelp.com/biz/st-armands-circle-association-sarasota

Day 2 – Should we stay or should we go?

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