So…this is our last full day in Sarasota. We know, for sure, that we will be going to the beach in the morning. First, we plan on going to get some breakfast in Siesta Key Village again. There’s a restaurant called The Broken Egg. Apparently, Dick Vitale eats at The Broken Egg almost every day. He’s even known for frequently mentioning it on Mike and Mike in the Morning. If you remember our picture of Siesta Key Village at sunset, The Broken Egg is straight through the intersection, on the left (if you’re not Shawn Spencer and you can’t remember the pic, I posted it again, down below).

It sure did not disappoint. Justine got a massive oatmeal, whole wheat, and buttermilk pancake with strawberries and bananas. It was topped with the rest of her meal, cheesy potatoes, sausage and one egg.

I had Don’s Fiesta Skillet (potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, onions, salsa, and two eggs), along with fruit, and an english muffin.

We’re sad to say that we didn’t see Dick Vitale. Our only celebrity sighting is Vanilla Ice. And that is not even documented.

But…we have been seeing Amish and Mennonites around town frequently. Every time, we’re surprised to see these people in Florida. Well, we did some research for you. Interesting fact, if you google “Amish in” the second search that automatically comes up is “Amish in Florida.” Apparently, they like to spend their winter months in Florida. Sarasota is specifically mentioned as their destination of choice. There are five Amish restaurants in Sarasota, Der Dutchman, Dutch Haus, Dutch Oven, Sugar and Spice, and Yoder’s. Also, there is a Saturday morning Amish farmer’s market.

Ok. So back to the vacation. Today, we decided to stop and see Blake to ask about paddleboard rentals. As it turns out, there is too much wind to go paddleboarding. Too much wind…that’s the story of our vacation in Florida. So, we head out to the beach, instead. This time we didn’t go to Siesta beach, we drove further down the key to Turtle Beach. I’m really sorry, but we didn’t get any pictures. It’s hard to explain the difference, but the sand is a stark contrast to the sand in Siesta Beach. This sand is made dark and shelly. Also, the beach is a little steeper. And the beach is much more quiet since the spring breakers only go to the #1 beach in the US. The one similarity is that the water is still clear blue. Hey, I’ll trade the riff raff for darker sand any day.

Still, with half the day left and no chance to paddleboard, we had to do something interesting. Just north of us is Lido Key and Longboat Key. Blake recommended that we head over to St. Armarnd’s circle and the Mote Aquarium. We did just that.

The great thing about the Mote Aquarium is that it is also a major research center. We walked through seeing the normal fish, squid and jellies. But, we were able to see huge tanks of sharks, stingrays, dolphins, manatees and sea turtles where you can get pretty close.

Here’s Justine making friends with the stingrays.

We also got pretty close to the sea turtles! These girls, Shelly and Montego, are around 200 pounds.

And of course, Justine had to see the Manatees.

After the Mote Aquarium, we took a stroll around St. Armand’s circle. This place is packed with restaurants and shopping. Apparently, it was founded by a French pioneer, St. Amand (the misspelling of Amand, later stuck as Armand) and later purchased by John Ringling.

For our last night in Sarasota, we had dinner back on Siesta Key at The Cottage. This is a tapas resuarant that turned out to be the best choice of our trip on the Gulf Coast. The food was amazing. And…I’m willing to admit that we had the best crabcake outside of Maryland. In fact, it’s not a Maryland crabcake at all! It’s grilled, with pepperjack cheese, and some sweet sauce on top, with corn salsa. Wow!

After dinner and more frozen yogurt from SunniBunni, we had to get back to the hotel to get ready to go home on Friday. I had to break the news to Justine that we are driving home tomorrow. I guess she wasn’t ready for that. I had to leave and watch her have a little time to herself in the van. I couldn’t hear her very well, but it sounded like “I don’t want to go!!!”