Sunset on the Beach

In all the times I've been down here over the years, I've never gone out to Anna Maria Island to watch the sun set. We've talked about doing it several times, but it kept getting put off and when we'd decide that tonight was the night, it would rain or something else came up and it just never happened.

Tonight, we all loaded up in the car and headed west for Holmes Beach out on the island. We ate at Cafe on the Beach, where I had some sort of fried fish and lemonade. It was just okay - heavy on the breading, light on the fish inside it. When you eat on the beach, they don't give you straws for your drinks, because they're especially bad for the birds if they become litter. They also have plastic cording strung across the top of the patio to keep the birds from stealing your food. They aren't foolproof, though, because a couple of years ago, I was eating my fish and a sea gull swooped in and took an entire filet right off my plate!

Photo by Kay Mawhorter

After we finished our meal, we parked our chairs down by the water and it wasn't too long before the sun presented us with the end of the day in technicolor. We snapped several pictures, but my aunt won the prize for the best capture of it all. The air temperature, even with the slight breeze, was delightful and not chilling at all. We walked a short length of the beach before heading for home.

We took a slight detour about halfway, at SweetBerries. As you might guess, it's a wonderful ice cream shop. Well, not ice cream exactly, but frozen custard. It tastes just like ice cream to me though and my Caramel Crunch Concrete really hit the spot. Romie had some strawberry banana thing like a sundae. It had a clever name, but I can't remember what it was now.