Anna Maria Island

Two years ago I traded landscaping work for time at a condo on Anna Maria Island in Florida and last week I went there with my sister and girlfriends for a three days. The place we stayed in, Trade Winds was nice perhaps a bit small with four of us since it was only a one bedroom with a fold out couch but it was comfortable, clean and the staff was friendly.

There were a couple of unique landscaping ideas that caught my eye. One was the use of plates as edging. The colorful plates were appropriate in scale and added charm to the patterned metal gate, overall it worked well. But the one place that blew me away was the new house where the landscape designer replicated a beach scene. Everything about the job seemed to flow. It was well executed and made me want to get out and trespass all over the place . A great job.

The weather was a bit contrite with temperatures barely 60, steady wind off the ocean and one day a fog so thick you could not see the Atlantic while walking on the beach. That was actually a rather neat walk reminded me of being more on the northeast coast than Florida. The sea was whipped up pretty good as well three and four foot swells were breaking steady and the surf pounded the sand making me wish it was hot enough to play in the water. Anna Maria is loaded with stellar beaches, plenty of fine white sand, decent shelling, lifeguard towers and miles of easy walking.

We concentrated on chatting, dining, strolling and shopping all with great success. Rotten Ralph's at the Bradenton City Pier was a fun spot with tasty chow and a great location. I missed an opportunity to video a large brown pelican chasing a eight year old boy along the end of the pier. The lad was afraid of the bird and the bird appeared to relish its ability to make the boy squeal and hide, it was really funny but I was out of battery power, bummer.

Chasing live music for our evening entertainment proved our most difficult task. We hit every spot that advertised live music and asked several locals for advice. We listened to a woman sing with a karaoke machine and she sounded like a nursery school teacher a rock band in a small local bar was tolerable but the smoke in the bar was impossible. Finally we decided to leave the island and head to Bradenton and a place called Aces that a friend had emailed us about before we left, bingo. Aces was great, reminded me of my hometown bar with two levels so that you could look down upon the band, get out of the smoke and watch the crowd on the dance floor. The band was terrific, a southern rock, blues band with a large repertoire of music and styles. They started out with four guitars and a drummer and were joined by a horn section for part of one set, they were tight, the lead singer had a good voice and they played lots of tunes we all enjoyed, definitely worth the drive.

There was an arts and crafts fair we ran through Saturday morning on Holmes Beach which despite the foul weather turned out to be a spot where we all bought some treasures. Bridge St. on Sunday mornings has a small year round local arts and craft fair which is fun but lacks the diversity and size many people look for at craft fairs.

The best food and atmosphere we found was at the Sandbar. We had a wonderful waitress named Mare, nice wine at a good price, crunchy conch fritters, clam chowder, Caesar salad and grouper blackened. Location, location, location is the key at the Sandbar, after a table at the window opened up we moved to the premier spot and enjoyed our fabulous view of mother ocean.