Travel Blog: Anna Maria, FL (2)

As 4:45pm on Friday struck it was time to leave my house on the way to pickup Alyson for our destination of a little cottage in Anna Maria, FL for the 3 day weekend.

For those unaware Anna Maria is the north part of Bradenton/Sarasota way up there as a little island accessible via one road into town. With a holiday weekend the traffic was heavy, but not terrible as we arrived to our cottage with a delay not much more than regular beach traffic.

Arriving later in the day around 7pm it was time to head straight to dinner and we wanted to try out a pizza place in the heart of the main street. We visited Pizza Social and it was packed with folks inside and out.

They warned us it would take around 30 minutes for a pizza to be made, but we stayed anyway and killed some time enjoying a salad with drinks. As I saw pizzas come out of the oven and go into a to-go box - it was a huge amount of pickup/delivery orders competing with any of us there in person.

This was a popular place with a solid wood fired pizza and a great way to end the night, but not before we stopped for some ice cream on our way back to the cottage.

As Saturday morning arrived I went off on a run then when I got home got on a bike with Alyson and did the same exact path on a bike. It was my first recorded biking on my Garmin so I unlocked a bunch of badges. During that bike ride we rode into the marina on the other end of the island and found a sushi restaurant in it! I had no idea a restaurant was in the marina so we made a note to visit that place later for dinner.

However before that we had to visit the beach and then our favorite lunch spot. The beach was a bit odd rocking a huge amount of seaweed that had a semi fishy smell attached with it.

Thankfully though it wasn't anything to be afraid about and could be walked through or stepped on with no issue. Beach day was going to be Sunday so it was time to sneak out to The Porch right when they opened for an 11am lunch.

This is a place that when a good deal of places on Anna Maria rely on convenience or view to attract customers - this place relies on excellent natural ingredients for everything. I forgot to snap photos of the food this time, but got a shot of the specialty white & rose sangria we had.

As this meal ended we took a quick trip to the general store for some items we forgot and a kiddie scoop of ice cream. As we were walking home we saw an ambulance driving through the mess of traffic and found the individual they were coming for. This kid crashed his electric bike from some rocks on the road and had large bleeding cuts/rashes that probably would require some stitches.

The heat in the middle of the day was hitting 92F (33C) and it was brutal to be outside with no shade. We got back to the cottage to play some board games and enjoy some drinks while looking for a place to eat dinner in the air conditioning. We decided to bike back to the marina and experience a sushi place we didn't even know existed till that day.

Biking later in the day is increasingly more difficult than a 7-9am bike ride as cars are everywhere. With how many homes are still destroyed from the hurricanes of the past there isn't clear sidewalks or bike lanes in all areas, but we eventually made it to dinner right when they opened. We were too paranoid with the holiday weekend in terms of availability, but no one else was there when we got seated at 4:02pm at Island Ocean Star.

I'd never had a ginger salad topped with imitation crab before, but it tasted great. Nothing could be graded as amazing with the sushi, but it was an alright dinner right on a pier over looking a yacht marina. Was interesting to overhear the conversation at the marina gas station as boats came in struggling to find gasoline anywhere else. It was odd to have boats coming in after 5pm looking for gas to find the station closed right at 5 - I'm guessing a crowd of holiday boaters led to this.

Once done with dinner we had to jump back on our bikes and head on home. I always will appreciate walking or biking back from a meal as you feel like you are burning some calories from the food you just ate.

As we got home it was time to relax with some drinks and movie to prepare for beach day with some friends. As Sunday arrived it was straight to business as early as 6am to grab some bikes and head out to the Donut Experiment.

I'm sure I've talked about this place before, but you walk in and get a piece of paper to record your donuts. You have to pick the type of frosting, toppings and any drizzle on the donuts. You don't get to pick anything about the base donut itself, but with all the adaptions you can make create some crazy masterpieces.

If I could take a more light Krispy Kreme style donut with this place it would be unstoppable, but either way this place is great. The white donut above was a vanilla frosting donut and it was the best one of the few I tried. We had donuts ready for our friends and we went off to set up at the beach around 8am.

As you can tell from this picture the shade associated with our canopy was quite far away from the shelter itself. Every so often we had to reposition with the sun's movement to stay in the shade. The sun was brutal and for any person I saw chilling on the beach without shade covered I seriously wondered how they did it.

I needed a towel protecting my bare legs and a long sleeve shirt to protect my arms when I was relaxing and that was on top of the sunscreen I was reapplying under a canopy. Doing all of that effort and I sit here typing this blog still somehow burned.

Starting our beach day before most even set foot on the beach we ended pretty early around 1pm to shower, cool down and relax. The sun just drains the energy from you so we relaxed until a 4:30 dinner time to go back to our favorite spot for the dinner iteration of The Porch.

A place that has not yet let me down so we continue to go. I knew we wanted to experience the dinner iteration as the menu completely changes. This time we both went with a steak heavy entree and it was delicious. We just had a weird table next to us that wanted to leave the instant they sat down. Clearly some personal drama, but I couldn't help but listen in as they argued for leaving. They ended up agreeing to one round of drinks and then leaving, but it was odd to have a table insulting people for eating at 4:45 when they were sitting down to potentially do the same.

As our dinner ended and our sunburns set in we just needed a bit more ice cream to cool down as we walked back to the cottage. Another night to relax with a movie and recuperate after a day of sun heavy activities.

This is a three day weekend and the blog always goes out on Sunday @ 10:30 so the blog may end here, but the weekend has not.