Day 5 – Is that the wind or am I just not getting anywhere?

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Today we are dragging a little, the goals of our vacation was to 1. Get away from work and home to de-stress 2. Bike new trails and take advantage of our bikes 3. To discover aspects of FL that are not typically visited when a family goes on vacation.

I think we have done a good job of hitting all three goals, we have eaten only at local places, hit local and state parks, and more importantly we have ridden our bikes every day and so far have covered 30 miles of trails. We are surprised that we are not sore, but rather a little fatigued but we will not allow a day “off” because the vacation was suppose to be about biking so our commitment was to bike every day and we are going to do just that. One of the advantages we have realized is we have not had to pay for any activities – no admission fees or rental fees, so other than food or shopping our expenditure for the trip has been minimal.

It is bitter sweet that Day 5 is our last day biking in the Sarasota area. This time we have opted for biking the Venetian Waterway Trail which connects with the Legacy Trail that winds through Sarasota.

Since we had leftover donuts we ate breakfast in our room and then headed south towards Venice, FL.

Along the way we discovered a Tervis Tumbler Factory store – OMG these things exist? I thought immediately of my sister Elena and her husband’s family who are Tervis fanatics. It just happens to be my brother in law Adam’s birthday today so we picked up a tumbler for him in honor of the occasion and also bought two of the newer models of tervis which are like water bottles which Jay was able to get permission to take out to our bikes and confirm they fit in our bottle holders.

When we got to the Venetian Waterway Park it was over cast and windy, but we mounted up and got ready to ride but we quickly realized that we were not going anywhere fast, it was like we were pedaling hard and just creeping along. Jay brought up the weather app on his phone and it reported we were in the middle of 17mph wind with 30 mph gusts, anyone who has ever had to bike into a head wind will know it is like pushing a wall with your bike. Generally our average speed when biking on a paved trail is 9 – 10mph but during this portion of our ride it was 5mph. We struggled but we did make it 2.5 miles up the path before deciding that this ride was more work than fun and turned around so we still completed a 5mile ride which still wasn’t too bad.

We have tried to alternate long rides and short rides each day and the hope had been to make it a long ride but the weather just wasn’t cooperating.

We headed back up to downtown Sarasota but we had seen on our ride to Venice some places that we wanted to stop. First was lunch at the Alpine Steakhouse which was as old school as you could get with red banquet seating, black and white checkered floors and it was a combo fresh meat market and restaurant. Apparently this place was on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives a few years back for their turducken sandwich which Jay almost ordered but when he found out he could order a steak he couldn’t resist.

The staff were really nice, the place clean, it is just a echo in the décor of the 70’s but on some level we had to give them props for keeping it in such good shape. We would definitely come back for a second visit if we were ever in the area again. The bacon on my turkey club sandwich was so good we got 2 lbs to take home to put in the freezer.

As we got back on the road we hopped into Traders Joes which is coming in a few months to Miami, but I wanted to check it out and see what all the fuss was about. Between coffee, nuts and dried fruit we got some good deals. It was funny though because we only went a few blocks before Jay spotted this place called Bulk Food and we had to see what it was all about. It was amazing, aisles and aisles of bulk food sold by weight from traditional options like candy, nuts and coffee to the specialty items like ten different kinds of flours, soup mixes, sprinkles, yeast, baking soda etc, all sold by the weight and you could bag as much as you needed. I wish we had something like this in Miami because it would mean I could get great prices and fresh quality ingredients for my cooking.

We tried to go to a local ornamental iron forge but got there a few minutes after closing, but we spotted across the street a place called Plant and Treasures – what drew us in was the advertised $5 orchids. They had lots of colorful pots and ornamental items for the garden but their orchid selection by far was the reason to come in. I could not believe how cheap they were selling their orchids for and I told the guy and he said I wasn’t the first customer to tell him that. Oh well, I am not going to turn cheap plants away so we bought 7 orchids and Jay picked out a different variety of pitcher plant than the one he already has at home.

When we got the hotel I just couldn’t stand the way the car looked so I sent Jay to the pool and got everything organized for the ride home. Made space for any purchases we would have at the Amish market in the morning.

Our evening activities were very interesting. We went to the Players Theatre which was a 5 minute walk from our hotel. They had a food truck and Drag Queen Bingo, what more could I ask for? The food truck was a slider truck and it was cheap. So we had a snack before the show. The show was hysterical, for adults only and definitely was worth staying in Sarasota for. Jay couldn’t stop laughing and while we didn’t win BINGO, we certainly got a winning experience from the show.

Afterwards we were finally hungry but yet again the challenge was what was still open at 10pm and in walking distance as we didn’t want to move our car as we had a great parking spot for loading up in the morning and keeping the bikes out of the rain that was suppose to pass through during the evening.

We found a pizza place called the Broadway. I was skeptical but the risotto ball was excellent and the pizza had a thin crust and their availability of different sizes allowed us to order a small meal without feeling like we were wasting food.

The best part is we were able to go to the show and dinner all in walking distance of the hotel.

So that is it, our last night in Sarasota. Day 6 we hope to leave the hotel by 7.30am to go to the Amish breakfast spot and market and then depending on the time we hit the highway we will try and stop in Sanibel for lunch and a short ride before heading home. It is kind of nice as our friends who run Crackers in our town sent us a text telling us one of our favorite dishes is on the menu for dinner Sat night, I guess they are saying come home, we are waiting for ya’ll. Between the dogs and our local eatery waiting for us I am not sure we could have a better home coming.

So just one more blog post and then getting all the photos from the trip up and you will be done with our most recent Traveling Ham adventure!

Places we visited today:



https://www.scgov.net/parks/Legacy%!T(MISSING)rail%!D(MISSING)ocuments/The%!L(MISSING)egacy%!T(MISSING)rail%!a(MISSING)nd%!V(MISSING)enetian%!W(MISSING)aterway%!P(MISSING)ark%!M(MISSING)ap%!G(MISSING)uide.pdf



http://www.tervis.com/community/tervis-factory



http://www.alpinesteak.com/



http://www.yelp.com/biz/trader-joes-sarasota



http://www.yelp.com/biz/bulk-n-natural-foods-sarasota



http://www.plantsandtreasures.com/

http://www.broadwaybar.com

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