Venice with Friends

 

Our neighbors from back in Ann Arbor, Harriett and Rita, spend their winters in Bradenton, and we’ve been wanting to get together with them.  So, we finally made arrangements to meet at Sharky’s on the pier in Venice.

 

 

 

We arrived a little early to check out the beach.

It was a beautiful day, and there were quite a few people enjoying the beach.  We were watching a family with 3 little kids who were running in and out of the water, screaming – it reminded us of Nicolas and Bryce when they were little.  It turned out that they were from Toledo – small world!

As we were talking, the Dad got excited – he spotted a shark!

It turned out to be a dolphin . . . still cool!

We walked along the beach, hoping to find a few shark’s teeth, but we weren’t seeing much in the sand – guess you have to get in the water to find teeth!  We did see a few fishermen,

and a pelican doing some fishing, too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we walked back towards the pier, we ran into Rita and Harriett.  We made our way over to Sharky’s,    

and got caught up while we waited for our table.  The last time we saw them was at Nicolas’ graduation party, so we had a lot of catching up to do!

Eventually, we got seated at a nice table on the patio, overlooking the beach.  Sharky’s has a good selection of seafood and sandwiches . . . Tom and Rita were the only ones eating seafood, but there was plenty for Bryce and Harriett and I to choose from.

Everything we ordered was really good!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner was great, and we enjoyed visiting with Harriett and Rita . . . now I just have to keep Tom away from garage sales . . . or he’ll be starting a new enterprise!!

After dinner, the girls were heading back to Bradenton, and we took a little walk along the pier.  We had a great view of the beach from up there!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a beautiful beach . . . we may have to come back again to spend a day there!

We saw egrets, 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and pelicans,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and a nice view of Sharky’s.

Leaving Venice, we took the scenic route – Tamiami Trail – all the way back to Ft. Myers.  It took us through the towns of Northport, Port Charlotte, and Punta Gorda . . . and a fair amount of rush hour traffic.  After stopping for an ice cream cone in North Ft. Myers, we crossed the Caloosahatchee River just in time for a beautiful sunset.

A beautiful end to a beautiful day!