We had a great day at Turtle Beach in Sarasota.
It was a great night of sleep. I had the temp at 72 inside and it was perfect. I woke up at 7:30, and Bella had just woken up as well. She had done bad in her math work this week, so first thing we did was go over all the questions she got wrong for the week. She knew most everything and I think she just got impatient the days she did it and guessed the answers. After we were done, she had breakfast and got to use her computer. I went outside around 8:45 to write, it’s nice and warm but not too hot yet. I also wanted to take the trash out, it was so stinky from the chicken from yesterday. I stayed out and finished writing and enjoying my cup of coffee there, and also watched the foot traffic in the campground. People taking dogs for a walk, or going to use the facilities nearby, people moving out, people making breakfast. It was nice to be outside, and especially not get attacked by mosquitoes. As Carol and the girls woke up, they got breakfast and we started packing to go to Turtle Beach. We are meeting Calina’s there too, so that will be fun.
I deflated the paddleboard so we can take it. I read Turtle Beach is pretty calm and there is a canal behind it so you can paddleboard there too. I got the board in the truck, got some coolers so we can take some drinks, got all the towels and bags that Carol setup.
I had to make sure the girls were moving, and they were, they changed into their swimming suits and put shorts and t-shirts over them, then I told them to get outside and in the truck. Bia played with Maggie a bit before we left, so Maggie got a bit of a workout before a full day of being stuck in the trailer. We left the campground around 10:30am, and had an ETA of noon. I had put a parking lot in the GPS, and it looks like there’s plenty of parking there. I’m pretty used to this drive now, we’ve done it a few times. We get out of town, onto a highway, go over the water on a cool bridge, which lights up at night, then hit more highways until we get to the beach. All the same today, but when we got close, we stopped at a Publix to get lunch and drinks and ice. I got beers and hard seltzers and ice, Bella stayed with me, and when we paid she got some gum. Bia went with Carol to get food, and they came back with Sushi for lunch and some cheese and chips, some watermelon, etc. Bella and I were done first, so we walked to the truck and put the drinks in the coolers. I asked Bella to help, so she took care of the seltzers while I did the beer. We had everything packed in pretty quick, and I had left some seltzers out since we didn’t need to pack all 24 :). We packed 18 cans of beer and 18 cans of seltzers. When Bia and Carol were back, we started driving again.
From there we were less than 5 miles away from the beach, yet the GPS was showing 24 minutes. As we drove, the time was changing lower quickly. Everyone ate their sushi, and when Carol was done she fed me mine. ahahahah.. kind of hard to drive and eat sushi. Soon we got to the bridge that is the access to the beaches, and I could see why the time in the GPS was so long, that is a bottleneck to get to the beach front, and if you turn right you go to Siesta Key, which is very popular. We turned left to Turtle Beach. We went through some nice areas, that had this small island town feel to it. And soon we were at the beach. We found a parking spot right in front of the beach so we took it. We walked in the sand first to find a spot before we unloaded, and it was super windy. I mean, so windy most people did not have their umbrellas open, and there were very few tents setup. Flavia later checked at the hotel and they said the entire coast was that windy today. Bia chose our spot and stayed there to save it, and we went back to get our stuff.
I went up on the truck bed and started pulling things out. We took the red cart, loaded the two coolers, the beach umbrella, the bodyboards, and all the bags. Bella took the bodyboards and buckets too. It was not too bad to pull the cart until I hit the fluffy sand, then it got heavy, but I didn’t have far to go. Carol went back to the truck to change while I setup our space. I got the umbrella first, and Bia was helping me. It was tricky to open it and not have it fly right away, the wind was incredibly strong and non stop. I got it open and we turned the opening away from the wind, then I had Bella push down on it from the inside so it would not fly while I had the coolers placed over the side flaps as anchors. Those held it down pretty good. I also tied cords to the cooler handles, another one to the red cart, and one last one to a stake on the sand. I was pretty confident that thing would not fly away, or at least would not go far from us.
We got everyone’s sunscreen on, and were ready to rock. Bia tried flying the kite a bit, but it was way too windy. She enjoyed it for maybe 15-20 minutes and then put it away.
Bella wanted to go in the water, so as soon as they could, they ran there. Calina’s arrived just a little later, and the girls ran towards Vi. They were so happy to be together. The girls played together non stop from there. It was awesome to watch how happy they were to be together. They played, they laughed, they went in the water, the bodyboards, they ran, and just had a great time. The boys played with the girls too most of the time. Bia is so awesome with little kids, she is amazing with Charlie. We got lots of awesome pictures of all the kids.
We hung out by the beach until sunset, it was an awesome time. The adults enjoyed the time as well. We went in the water many times, played with the kids, enjoyed our beverages of choice. Some enjoyed their beverages a little too much, well, I did… I had a lot of beers, past the point of no return. hahahaha… dang. It was super fun to be out there today. We all enjoyed ourselves and had a good time. I was surprise we stayed out so long, but the moms had packed enough snacks to hold everyone up and we could get to enjoy the sunset. One of the snacks was cheese puffs, and Bella was trying to hold one up and see if a bird would snatch it from her hands hahahaha…
After we left the beach, Carol was driving and stopped at a Taco Bell for a quick something to eat on the road. As usual, after I have too many and am the passenger, I fell asleep on the way back and woke up when we got to our campground. We got things unloaded quick, at least the minimum that we needed to, so everyone could shower and go to bed. No mess or smells today when we arrived, I had done the dishes before we left too :). And that was our day.
We had an awesome day at Turtle Beach (Sarasota) with our friends.