Day Trip to Bradenton

(Wauchula, FL) -- Hi 76 Lo 48 - Last night I went to my first Bingo game.  Hard to believe at my age, but I've never played Bingo. I went with Gail and she explained the different types of games.  I got four cards for $2. So what happens?  The very first game I played, I won!  $12.00!!  OK, now I'm hooked.

The Bingo machine blows a ball up thru a tube and the caller grabs it and puts it on the number, which lights up on a big board on the wall behind him. I'm sorry I didn't get the name of the gentleman who was calling the games.

Gail has plastic markers with metal rings around the edges of them. At the end of each game she uses a magnetic wand to pick them all up from her cards. Pretty neat!

 There's several games to play, and the last game of the night the whole card has to be filled.

Today turned out to be a very nice day, about  76 degrees with a light breeze.  We were up early, and after our morning routine we were out the door for a day trip to the Bradenton area on the Gulf coast, about 50 miles west of us. On the way we took a drive through Lake Manatee State Park. It's a small park with two loops containing 60 campgrounds with water and 30-amp hookups. You can stay two weeks, but it's usually pretty full this time of year so reservations are highly recommended.  It had some trees but was open enough for satellite.  All the sites are back in, and pretty spacious.

We drove through downtown Bradenton and over the Palma Sola Bay to Anna Maria Island.  Bradenton is just south of the Sunshine Skyway that goes over the Tampa Bay to St. Petersburg.  It's a very attractive and clean city.  The beaches are on Anna Maria Island and Long Boat Key, two separate islands.  We visited Anna Maria, which is very touristy, with most of the population being seasonal residents.  There were lots of vacant houses, apartments, and cottages.  It didn't seem crowded at all.  I think we're kind of between seasons, so it may get more populated the next few months.  Almost the entire western side of the island is public beach, with a lot of access points.  We stopped and walked on the beach for a while, but there was a stiff west wind and the water was very rough.

We drove to the northern end of the island and on the way stopped at a park on the bay side.  As you can see, the water was a lot calmer on that side of the island.  That's a restaurant at the end of a pier behind Jim.

We headed back east across the bay and stopped for lunch at Salem's Gyros & Subs.  We used our Groupons coupon that we bought a couple of weeks ago. We both like gyros so we made it a point to stop at Salem's while in the area.

After a great lunch, we looked up some RV parks in the area that Jim had researched.  We love it at our current park, but we're always thinking about options for next winter.  Sarasota Bay RV Park was really nice.  It's about two miles from the Cortez Bridge connecting Bradenton with Anna Maria Island.  When you turn into the park you can see the bay ahead at the end of the street. There's lots of park models, but one full section is for RV's.

This is the view at the end of the road.

 Mostly park models on this road.

Mostly RV's on this one.

Another park we saw was Tropical Gardens RV Park.

I love the blue park model beside the bus.

All paved roads and concrete pads.

Then on to Pleasant Lake RV Resort.  If we had our choice for next year, this would be the one.

Sitting area in front of the lake

 The lake is huge and there's park models and RV's around the whole lake.

We stopped at our local Winn-Dixie on the way home to get some milk, and we also picked up a pizza for dinner.  It was a great day out, and we both got our water fix. There's just something calming about oceans, lakes, bays and rivers in our little part of paradise.