Beach, Sunshine, Settling In

This statue of the famous pose struck at the end of WWII which has a twin in San Diego.

We have spent a week in Bradenton, a smaller town just south of Tampa/St. Petersburg and just north of Sarasota.  The weather is warm and humid (at least until today when a cold front came through preceded by some rain last night.)  It is nice wearing sleeveless shirts and only requiring a sweater inside most of the air conditioned places we visit especially the restaurants.

Sarasota Beach

Early on in the week we made a trip down to Sarasota to Costco for eye glasses and I picked up a couple of shirts for warmer weather.  We drove over to Sarasota’s beach to see what it looked like and viewed lots of people enjoying the water, sugar white sand and sun. 

Sarasota Beach

Even the Sarasota seabirds are enjoying the beach.

We’ve located an Apple store, secured cable TV and internet since we’ll be here for a month and pinpointed grocery stores and gas stations.  Happily we have a good Italian restaurant just down the street and Walgreen’s is just a few blocks away.  Any type of “box store” one could desire from Dillards and Macy’s to Walmart or Target are nearby.

Bridge to St. Petersburg 

Further along the St. Petersburg Bridge

We drove a loop up through St. Petersburg and over through a bit of Tampa and then headed back south to Bradenton last Sunday on an overcast day that ultimately turned sunny.  We poked around looking at parks, waterfront, mobile home and RV parks and enjoyed just exploring this part of the world.  Like many areas we’ve seen over the summer, there are areas that have slipped downward needing repairs, tenants for vacant storefronts or attention for housing that goes unkept (in our compulsive behavior pattern of liking everything neat and tidy!)  There are some street people as any city provides.  But here there are also friendly people who warmly engage over a store counter or across the waiting room of a doctor’s office or from the side of a restaurant table.  An older crowd with stories to tell or young people used to engaging with the elders who are all around us.  It is pleasant.  

St. Petersburg Skyline from the bridge.

Pier House in St. Petersburg

View back toward St. Petersburg from the pier through the marina.

Close-up (the old, the new and the marina)

Blooms of unknown name...

Great Blue Heron

We also visited the local beach (which is the same as Sarasota’s) here in Bradenton.  This area of Florida is a world made up of one mobile home park after another with homes of ages ranging from the 1960’s and 70’s up through new models being put in as we visit.  The age group in these parks is predominantly 60 and up with the majority in their 70’s and 80’s.  This is where many retire to secure relatively inexpensive housing, good weather and abundant geriatric medical services.  The area itself is a mixture of modest housing all the way up to multi-million dollar neighborhoods on the water or in gated communities.

Waterfront mobile home park.

We have washed the coach’s curtains and they came out looking like new with a little help from Oxiclean.  We are both reading “The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown which is written in his typical fast paced writing style in a rather inaccurate account of Masonry traditions however still entertaining.  The car has been favored with a tuneup and is behaving beautifully.  Snoopy is happily settled into our latest location watching chameleons and ants (our newest foes to keep out of the coach) and rarely now the last residuals of our infamous “stink bugs” who hitchhiked with us from Pennsylvania (hard to believe they they made it through the ride!) through the Carolinas.  We have been walking daily for 30 to 60 minutes and it feels nice to be outside and exercising.  So life goes while we are “off the road.”  We will share whatever we happen upon that seems interesting in this spot until we hit the road again on December 14th.