Day 236 – 4/23/21 Caspersen Beach, Venice FL.

We had a nice day at Caspersen Beach, in Venice here in Florida.

It was a beautiful morning, and the view out of my window was awesome.  We are under a big tree, some palm trees right out the window, the mangroves right behind us with a canal from the ocean right there.  Wow. 

I wrote a bit after I woke up but got ready to go for a run right away.  I had calls most of the morning, so I wanted to get a run in before my calls.  I left at 7:30 and hit Pinellas Trail, which seems to be quite an extensive trail system here in the area.  I took a right on the trail and ran my 2 miles that way.  It is a very nice trail, very wide and well kept.  There were two bridges to cross on my 2 miles, and the uphill on those was a tad steep for some people.  I think the kids may have a problem with their bikes up there, but maybe not.  There were not a ton of people on the trail, at least yet, and I had a very nice run. 

After I got back, I put my computer outside and had my calls from outside under the awning.  The weather was nice, and it was just warm enough to be out and enjoy rather than sweat over my computer.  After my calls, I finished writing, took care of a few emails and called it a day.

Bella woke up a bit earlier again, and followed the routine… ate breakfast, changed and got ready, then went on YouTube.  I had to wake Bia up when it was time for her class, and then also had Bella stop watching and start school.  Carol helped the girls as needed while I was on my calls.  She also got some stuff ready for us to take with us for the day, worked on some documents for her dad, and did a few things inside the trailer.  When I was done with my calls, Bella asked me to check her work as she was done.  I did the usual check to just make sure she had it done, but today I decided to also go into her digital work and check the grades.  Oh surprise.  This entire week she had gotten 60% on her math work, each day.  Coincidently, she was done with her work early the entire week too, which tells me she just clicked through to get it done.  Worse yet, she lied to Carol by telling Carol she had gotten 100% on today’s work.  We had a little conversation and will have more conversations today and tomorrow.  I told her she’s redoing everything she got wrong, and I can help.  And we have to talk about the lying part yet.  Bia did her thing with school, and when her last live class was over she still had some reading to do and a few questions to answer.  We had chosen to go to Caspersen Beach, which is about 90 minutes away, so we talked to Bia about doing her work tomorrow and she was ok with that.  We finished packing and left for the day.

Caspersen Beach is known for having lots of shells and also for people finding shark teeth there too.  That’s the main reason we picked that place.  Our drive there was fine, mainly highway, and it was easy to find parking once we got there.  The beach is pretty decent, with enough sand to accommodate people, and certainly lots of shells by where the water breaks.  We found our spot and unloaded our stuff. 

After applying sunscreen on everyone, the girls went quickly to start looking for shark teeth.  The ocean breaks lightly there and there are no big waves, mainly this water flow that breaks very close to the sand.  Exactly where it breaks is where there are lots of shells.  There were a lot of people scattered around the beach front, which is quite extensive, and many people where looking for shark teeth.  There were a lot of people with fancy scoop strainer rigs too.  The girls had a shovel and a little toy strainer. hahahah… but it worked. 

I went in the water with them and they started hunting.  We had a great time.  The girls were looking for stuff for hours, but aside from finding some awesome shells, no shark teeth.  I looked for it myself for a long time as well, and just found some awesome shells. 

The hunt definitely kept us all busy for a long time.  The water was nice and refreshing, the weather was great, the sand was nice, so without noticing soon it was 6pm and we were still there hanging out.  There was even a wedding pretty close to where we were sitting.  Carol watched it from the spot we had our stuff, and the girls and I were in the water at that time. The water was fairly clear too, you could see the shells, some sea grass, a fish here and there, etc.  Oh, Carol had bought this hammock floatie she had been wanting for a while, so she brought it and used it.  She was enjoying just floating around the water on that thing.  Bia joined her later and they were there for a while. 

At one point I went for a walk to check out more of the beach.  It was pretty much the same all over where I walked, kind of shallow with a quick small drop, shells on the break, nice sand, and lots of people looking for shark teeth.

We were getting hungry, so a little after 6 we decided to leave.  We collected our stuff, stopped by the restrooms and rinsed off, changed and left. The sun was already setting and it was looking nice.

I drove to Venice Beach first to take some pictures.  That is a very nice beach, lots of room and very clean.  The sun was setting, so people were gathering there to watch the sunset.  I got a few pictures, and it looked amazing. 

When I got back to the truck, Carol had picked a place to eat, so we drove there.  The place was a bit full, so we waited for a while to sit.  I enjoyed being there, kind of watching the sunset from that spot, it looked very pretty. 

Bella was with me most of the time too, and we had a good time hanging together and doing this or that while we waited.  Once we got seated, they were a bit slow with service too, but the food was good.  A bit pricey and small portions.  After dinner, we stopped to get ice cream a few doors down, then hit the road back home. 

When we got home, I opened the door and this stink came out.  Yuck!  I guess there were some pieces of chicken in the chicken tray in the garbage inside, and it stunk.  Carol put it outside and I’ll get rid of it tomorrow.  We all got showers and got ready for bed and called it a night.  By time I was done getting ready, and I was the last one, it was past 11.

We had a really nice day at Caspersen Beach.

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