Beach day

Today was my beach day.

We did what we always do--we drove down on Thursday and we spent Thursday evening settling in, going to the grocery store for provisions, going out to dinner, etc. Then on Friday I took Bob to the golf course and I went shopping. I didn't do much, just hit my favorite gift shop (Elysian Fields) and a couple of bookstores, and a few of the shops on St. Armand's Circle. I looked up a yarn shop, but it was in a kind of run-down strip mall, so I decided not to stop. I'm sure it would have been fine, but I try to be aware of my surroundings, especially here, and it didn't look like the best part of town.

Last night we were planning on going out, but Bob saw on television that the annual Christmas Parade of Boats was going on, and we remembered that two years ago we got stuck on the Key and couldn't get off; we also didn't want to go out to dinner and get stuck and not be able to get back on the key, so we decided to stay in. We'd eaten a late lunch at Chili's, so neither one of us was really hungry.

We spent a nice quiet evening; he watched television and I read, and then at some point he realized that the parade wasn't even in Sarasota, it was somewhere else, but by that time we didn't want to go out at all.

Today Bob took the car and I just hung out at the beach and the pool, reading, had lunch at the tiki bar (and a Piña Colada), then came up to the room mid-afternoon and took a nap until Bob got back, then we went back down to the tiki bar and had more drinks and appetizers (they have free food at Happy Hour), and decided we didn't really want to go out to dinner tonight, either.

We ended up going back to the grocery store for a few things, and tonight we've just been relaxing again; Bob's watching television and I'm going to start packing in a little while. Tomorrow we'll make our way back to Orlando and home.

As always, the only sad part about vacation is missing the cats, and especially this time since we didn't have anyone to take care of them. My parents offered, but it would be a long drive for them, and I knew the cats would be okay, but still, I worry.

We bought Florida Lottery tickets at the grocery store. You never know.