Tuesday March 6, 2012

First thing’s first, here’s a birthday shout out for Miss Maren Toly Wingard.

Happy 5th Birthday, Maren!

After another night sleeping in the van at our resort, we walked over to our continental breakfast knowing that we would have to say goodbye to Little Torch Key.

The drive from the Lower Keys to the mainland is a long one. It took us two hours to get off the islands. But, we were able to make a stop at the Dolphin Research Center on Marathon.

We walked into the gift shop to look around. But, you really have to have an appointment to see the dolphins, let alone swim with them. We did get a picture of their menu, though.

We took Route 1 up to mainland Florida and got on the turnpike. From there, the trip is pretty non-eventful. It’s through a very large forest preserve and a couple of Indian Reservations. Justine drove most of the way on this leg of the trip. We like to give the driver first choice in music. Her choices included Beyonce, Green Day, Good Charlotte, UB40, the Pussycat Dolls, and Flo Rida. That wasn’t all, but it should give you a good idea of what Aaron was subject to during the ride. After about 6 and a half hours, we were in Sarasota.

We got to our hotel at the Ramada in Sarasota. We ended up at this hotel because of a Groupon that Justine found. In fact, we decided on this trip because of the Groupon. So, we knew that once we checked in, we would have to confirm our discounted rate. Well, it turns out that this Ramada doesn’t really understand the whole Groupon process. To bring you up to speed, we had trouble with this hotel in the beginning. When we tried to book our stay, they told us that all of the rooms were booked. But, on their website and multiple travel websites, they had open rooms that fit the Groupon description. After calling them multiple times and talking to the manager, we were able to book our room. Actually, the manager didn’t ask any questions. So, back to checking in, the hotel wanted a print out of our Groupon code. This is ridiculous. Groupon specifically gives you two choices: print out your code or show the hotel the code on your mobile app and hit the “redeem” button. We had no way to print it out. But, they stuck to their guns. After finagling with their computers, we were able to get a printout.

We were happy to be in one place for a few days. After moving into our room, we drove to Siesta Key for dinner at the Old Salty dog

It was a great place for dinner. There is a lot of outdoor seating where dogs are welcome to sit and stay for a meal. Also, the prices were reasonable, the food was good, and the service was great. Much better than any french restaurant we know.

After that, we walked down the street to see the downtown shops. We stumbled upon Lelu’s Coffee Lounge.

We also got some frozen yogurt from SunniBunni. We drove to the hotel, ready for a full day in Sarasota.