Touring the Area!

Ken and I were up around 7, got ready for Pickleball, ate breakfast, and called Polly, my Curvette friend, to sing Happy Birthday.  So good to talk to her!

The 4 of us left at 8:30 and went to the pickleball courts.  We played about 7 games and again, had a lot of fun.  We were back to the CG by 10:15, showered, packed our lunches, and left by 11:15 to take a drive up the coastline to check out some of the beaches.  Our 1st stop was at Siesta Beach.  We ate our packed lunches there, did some walking on the beach, and left by 1:15.

The Happy Foursome!

There are 5 or 6 Lifeguard stations on this beach and
each one is a different color.  Helps us older folks
from getting lost!!

Lots of pelicans on this beach!

After walking the beach, Melissa and I sat down and
got into some interesting conversations!

Hard to tell on this photo, but this is one of the widest
beaches we have ever seen!

We were amazed how "full" the beach was for this
time of year.  The sand here is composed of lots of quartz
which makes it very white and smooth! 

From there we north towards Sarasota to tour the Drum Circle Rum Distillery.  We had a 2:30 appointment, but before the tour, they gave us samples of their 5 or 6 kinds of rum.  They suggested you take a little taste before adding any soda.  So, I did - mistake.  By the time I had tried all of them, I was feeling "pretty good".  I am not used to drinking liquor with such a high alcohol content!  When the tour started I was feeling rather silly and Melissa wasn't far behind!  All Melissa and I had to do was look at each other and we would start laughing, but we got it under control during the tour.  It was a very interesting "lesson" on how rum is made.  It is a very involved process and it took numerous years for this small company to perfect it.  Now their Spiced Rum is one of the best in the country, having won so many awards.  The whole operation only has 3 employees - the founder, his close buddy, and his fiancee.  They make all the rums, bottle it with a hands on machine that only does 4 bottles at a time, then they cork each one, put on the labels, and use a heat gun to seal the bottle with foil.  A very Hands on operation.  They say their fingerprints are on every bottle!!!!  In December they will begin selling their toasted coconut rum, which we had a chance to taste.  It was excellent and will probably become their best seller, even beating their spiced rum.  Time will tell.

This is where it all began for us - the rum tasting room!

This is the owner and his fiancess!

Time for the tour to begin!  Melissa and I where at
a "Happy Place"!

This small area is the distilling processing place!
Not very big!!!  Their Spiced Rum is made with all
natural spices and honey, not flavorings!

This is the vats where the processing is completed!

The wooden barrels they use have been "seasonsed" from
whiskey or bourbon companies.  And now they are doing
a new kind of rum that is stored in used beer barrels.

This is their "huge" bottling area.  Note the machine
in front of him.  They can only fill 4 bottles at a time
and then another employee puts in the cork.  After that
they put on each label!  No huge machines for this
process!

After leaving the distillery, we went back to driving along the coastline, stopping at Coquina Beach.   We walked along the beach and checked out the sand sculpture they were creating for a sand sculpture contest this weekend.  Then on to Fire and Stone Pizza for their buffet.  Ken and I had been there 1X last winter and could not believe how reasonable and good their food was.  They have a delicious salad bar, homemade soups, and pizza with so many different and unique toppings.  You can go back as often as you like and then they end the meal offering you a choice of 5 different ice cream sundaes.  Amazing and all this for $8.39!  Wow!!!! 

A huge sand sculpture in the process of being created!
It had sea life on one side and symphony instruments
on the other.  There will be a concert on the beach
this weekend!

Beautiful Coquina Beach!  The mounds of sand are
in preparation for this weekends sand sculpture
competition!

Lots of birds on the beach!

What a great soup, salad, and pizza bar!

On the way back to the CG we stopped at Trader Joe's, a new adventure for Chuck and Melissa.  We were all so "stuffed" from our dinner, that we bought very little.  Made a stop at Wal-Mart so Chuck could buy a "Florida Snow Shovel", a metal shovel for scooping along the surf and then sifting through the sand to find sharks teeth and shells.  We are going back to Manasota Beach tomorrow and Chuck wanted to try his luck at finding more sharks teeth!

We got back to the CG at 8 and decided we would not play any games tonight, but work on our blogs and download todays photos.  It was a very busy day, but filled with special adventures!