Weekend of Beaches

So yeah: Saturday was definitely not the monsoon I was expecting. Ambled outta the house around 2pm, had Subway for breakfast/lunch, and made a plan. I’d go from the top end of the Keys — Anna Maria Island — down to Lido Key, then hit Siesta Beach. But an interstate on-ramp outsmarted me and I was heading South instead of North, so I went to Siesta first. Probably all for the best anyway, the lighting was near perfect for the “beach ultimate” promotional shots I wanted to take.

Beach disc anyone?

Guess it wasn’t all dry out.

Moving North from Siesta Beach, this beauty comes from the shores of Ken Thompson park.

It was frickin bright out. Notice the tree behind my left shoulder….

Crazyneedles!

“The Ken Thompson Park Preserve Habitat Restoration Project, completed in February 2002, included the construction of tidal lagoons, removal of exotic vegetation such as Brazilian Pepper and Australian Pines, and planting of native vegetation. This will create nursery and foraging habitat for fish and birds native to Sarasota Bay. The boardwalk provides a rare opportunity to view a mangrove forest from inside.”

It was pretty cool! Noisy, even — lots of chirping inside.

The end of the boardwalk goes out over the water a little ways. See that patch of ground just behind my left shoulder? The next photo shows a closeup of it.

Hundreds of tiny crabs! The kind with one big pincer arm. They all moved and stood still at the same time, so cool to watch.

Moving further north on the keys, I hit Bradenton Beach.

Captions?

A patch of what simply looked like grass between the road and the beach was roped off, and this sign was in the middle. I guess they’re having trouble getting anything to grow there — perhaps high foot traffic is eradicating the natural vegetation? Course I couldn’t help but think of this when I saw it.

So yeah, the big concrete thing two shots up isn’t a pier at all — it’s designed to keep the beach from washing away.

Here’s another shot..

A closer look.

Still closer. Doesn’t this remind you of that candy bar Richard Moll used to advertise on TV? Golden honeycomb surrounded by chocolate. Anyone know its name? Arrr!

An eyesore, but gets the job done I guess. That’s the Gulf of Mexico.

So the rain did end up falling after all. Most of this was offroad.

A little difficult to see, but the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which runs from Manatee County to the St. Pete area, spans the entire horizon here. Shortly after this, I headed home. Five hours driving, it was definitely a long day. But it wasn’t over!
Got home, immediately took off to Jeff’s, where we ordered pizza, drank beer, talked music (resolution: find out when and where The Crystal Method and Orbital plays next) — and I learned a thing or two about Madden NFL 2004 on the Playstation 2. It was a lot of fun — they make it easy for someone who knows very little about football to get into it. There’s a full set of tutorials where they give you a demonstration of how different plays should go, and walk you through it. Turned out I was much better at completing long-bomb type passes rather than the brute-force “run through a crowd of linebackers for 3 yards” type plays. I can honestly say I think learning how to read cuts in Ultimate helped with that. We must have started Madden around 2am, and the next time I looked at the clock it was ticking past half of 5. Yikes.
Rolled into the world of the living around noon on Sunday, wrote up a post, and headed up to Lakewood Ranch to watch the Ultimate game.
Now I had no intention of playing because of my hurt toe — in fact, I drove up without my cleats — but after about 45 minutes of watching I was going nuts! Ended up playing barefoot for a good 30 minutes or so. So far, it doesn’t look like that affected it adversely. I’m still a little ginger on it.

Rex and Paul square off.

Sometimes we all need a break. Ryan flops over on the sideline. The heat was killer.

Left to right: Jay, Ross, Paul, Ernie, Daniel, David. David throws a high, curving backhand for the pull. Met most of these very cool people in the past two weeks while coming out to pickup games.

David goes for the disc, Matrix style.

Daniel catches his first hammer (upside down) throw ever!
Stayed up pretty late (again) last night, got a lot of the little things done — filed stuff away, scheduled bills for payment, put away the laundry, got the dishes done. My place is abnormally clean. I barely recognize it! All it cost was sleep!
Attended the Manatee county Ultimate league organizational meeting after work tonight with a tired and sick Cam. The rules this season are pretty much going to be the same as last year. The only concern I have is that we’ll be playing smack in the middle of Bradenton — an even further drive away than last summer. I think they’re doing it to prevent Sarasota (my team) from showing up and winning their championship two times in a row. 🙂
Hope sleep visits you quickly tonight.
Listening: Seal – Get it Together (Peter Rauhoffer Mix)