Exploring Sarasota’s Barrier Islands
On Sunday, the 19th, we picked up Linda and Herb at Linger Lodge at 10:00 a.m. to head over to Siesta Key which is a barrier island situated between Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Since they had already been there, they recommended going to the Broken Egg restaurant for breakfast. When we arrived, it was mobbed with a 40 minute wait! Normally we wouldn’t wait that long but the choice of breakfast places in the area were pretty slim. Rob dropped us off because there were no parking spaces in sight. He must have circled around the town for about 20 minutes when he was finally lucky enough to catch a parking space right in front of the restaurant. Whew, I was beginning to think that we would have to have breakfast without him! Both the breakfast and the service were good.
After breakfast we took a walk around town, passing by lots of shops and restaurants. Pretty busy place but it was Sunday after all. After a short walk we arrived at Siesta Key beach which is well known for having the whitest and softest sand and ranking among the top ten beaches in the US. Most beaches are made up of coral but Siesta Beach’s sand is 99% quartz!
We decided that we should take a picture of all our feet in the sand so we all huddled together and aimed our phones at our feet. How silly we must have looked to onlookers! Oh well, maybe they think that all snow birds are a little nuts!
After spending some time at the beach, we headed back to the van. From there, we headed along the barrier islands passing through St. Armand’s Key, Lido Key, Long Key and Bird Key. Along the way we checked out several campgrounds (Sarasota Bay, Holiday Cove, etc.) for possible future stays.
It was a good day for driving around since it was a fairly overcast day with periodic sun. The forecast called for a 30% chance of showers but fortunately they never materialized.
We finally headed back to Linger Lodge – Linda once again graciously invited us to supper and we accepted on the condition that she let us contribute to the adult beverages, munchies and dessert so Rob and I headed off to do some shopping at a nearby market. As mentioned in a previous post, our site at Horseshoe Cove just wasn’t conducive for entertaining plus you couldn’t have a campfire there. We had another delicious dinner – chicken thighs, rice and peas and key lime pie for dessert. Around 9:30 p.m., after enjoying the campfire again, we said a reluctant goodnight, knowing that we were leaving in the morning and that we might not see them again on this trip. Oh well, all good things must come to an end! But it was a great visit and we thank them for their wonderful hospitality!
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