2016 Mar 23-24 - Mostly the Ringling Mansion and Circus Museum

With the exception of a few shots at the beginning, all of the pics in this post were taken at 'The Ringling' the huge estate of John and Mable Ringling which includes their mansion (Ca' d'Zan), the circus museum, art museum, gardens, education center, etc. Most of the pictures posed here are of the mansion, the grounds, the circus museum, and the learning center.

The only thing that "saved" the estate was the fact that John left it to the city of Sarasota. As a result of the great depression, he died with $311.00 in his bank account!

We spent almost six hours at The Ringling and didn't even scratch the surface! None of the pictures I took were in the art museum. You've seen one old painting, you've seen them all, IMHO!

Enjoy!

2016 Mar 21-22 - Arrive at Lake Manatee SP and dinner with Art & Jo

On Monday, after driving a whole 35 miles and stopping at Publix for some groceries and Internet access, we arrived at Lake Manatee State ark in Bradenton at about 2:30. We have a very large campsite, complete with wildlife to great us. The weather is great, so we just walked around the park in the evening until it go a bit chilly outside, about 65 degrees, so we went inside.

Tuesday, we asked the park ranger where the nearest laundry facilities were and she said the best, and safest, laundromat was about 15 miles away. We're only about 13 miles from Jo & Art's, so we called to see if their laundry facilities were open. We go there about 2:00 and Marsha started laundry and visited with Jo while Art and I hung out in the barn drinking adult beverages and discussing manly things.

Next thing I knew, we were sitting down to a nice dinner. We got back to camp around 10:00 on the brightly moonlit night. I took a picture of it, but it didn't turn out very well. Oh, well, you get the idea.