Sarasota

One of the popular areas in America for retirement is the southwestern coast of Florida.  Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota, Fort Myers, Naples, and every little beach town in between attracts folks who appreciate warm weather, beautiful beaches with warm Gulf waters, and lovely palm-tree-centric landscapes.  I do like this part of the country.  The people are friendly and welcoming, the weather is ideal (at least during this portion of the calendar), all the stores and services you'd want (Costco, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods) are readily available, and there's just not much to complain about other than traffic, the price of beachfront property, and the summer heat.

We are currently staying for a week at Sunny South RV Park in Sarasota, Florida.  Most of the motorhomes and trailers here and elsewhere in Florida are "snowbirds" - that is, people from Canada and the northern US states who fly south for the winter to escape the brutal winters up there.  Therefore this - not the summer - is the high season for RV parks in Florida and some other southern states.

Sarasota was the winter home of the Ringling Brothers' circus empire, and Charles, one of the brothers was also a real estate speculator in Sarasota.  Two museums were built by the Ringlings in Sarasota - a circus museum and a huge museum housing their extensive art collection.  We toured the museums and walked around the mansion built by the last surviving Ringling brother, John, at a magnificent site overlooking the bay.

Below is a scale model in the Circus Museum of what it was like when the circus arrived by train in a town and set up the tents for what was certainly the greatest entertainment spectacle available in the early part of the last century to the rubes out in the sticks.

Siesta Beach, on a key (a sandy island) accessible over a bridge from Sarasota, was voted by Trip Advisor as the number one beach in the country for 2015.  The water is gorgeous, the sand is pure white quartz, and the beach is incredibly deep.  This is the Gulf of Mexico at its beautiful best.

Nancy and I put on our bathing suits and stretched out on the sand to develop a little color.  No beach attire selfies will be provided to this blog.