Dustin and I are not really beach people. I'm happy with going a couple times a year. Dustin could do completely without. I mean we lived next to the beach for years and still didn't frequent it much. But we totally love the gulf coast because DUH. You can't beat clearer water and powdery white sand! So back in June I booked our little getaway for the end of September to Siesta Key! We had gone last year for my birthday and I had been back in high school here and there. It's definitely my favorite beach by far. It has been a rainy wet hurricaney week to say the least so I was pretty worried about our trip. By Thursday I was teetering on canceling but Dustin talked me out of it. He said "...even if it rains the whole time, fuck it! We'll have a great time no matter what". So we woke up early on Saturday morning and headed down south. No rain and no traffic = WINNING.
I wanted to first visit Myakka State Park but when I called the lady told me it was too wet out there and they started to close some of the park down. Ok, NEXT. We decided to cruise up Siesta Key and walk around. We went in and out of several shops just enjoying the morning. There was one boutique we went inside that had really cute yet seriously overpriced clothes. A tank top for $60? No. A dress for $260? Never. Dustin was wearing his new Pens shirt when the lady running the boutique asked if he was from Pittsburgh. She was too. So we made small talk about the Pens/Steelers. Then randomly another couple in the store overheard us and THEY TOO were from Pittsburgh. High five!
After we had seen all there was to see, we decided to head over to the mall and walk around. We had 3 hours to kill before we could even check into our hotel. I bought a few things, we ate lunch, and then we thought we might see a movie until we looked at what was playing. We had either already seen it or had no interest in seeing what they were showing. I decided to fall back on my Plan B ideas (aka things to do in case it rained all day). The two options were Mote Aquarium or The Ringling. Dustin said I could choose so I went with The Ringling. It's kind of hard to tell from the website what The Ringling actually is. We drove up and the place was packed. We were lucky to even find a parking spot but we did. We both wondered if this was a normal Saturday for them. Dustin got another "Go Pens!" from a random stranger thanks to his new shirt. We walked in not really knowing what to expect. We were greeted by an older gentlemen who asked for our zip code and then he told us we could proceed. We both started looking for the ticket counter so we could pay for entrance into whatever this was but then a lady told us thanks to Smithsonian Magazine Museum Day we were both free. FREE!! The tickets are typically $25 for adults. How incredibly lucky is that? We were still in shock when a lady handed us a map of the place. I knew from the website there was a Ringling Bros. museum, a mansion, an art gallery, etc. but I had no idea it's all on one piece of property. And so we headed to the Circus Museum first and just kept making our way around the map until we were back where we started.
The first exhibit we saw in the Circus Museum was a room filled with a miniature circus. It was incredibly detailed down to the trains, tents, animals and spectators. It was really neat. Then we headed into another room which showcased real items used in past circuses. Then we headed upstairs where we could see the aerial view of the miniature circus. There was so much to look at from old clown shoes to all the old circus posters.
We then went into the building next door which was more like a warehouse. It was huge and contained old cages, a cannon!, and we also got to look inside John Ringling's private railroad car. It was really cool to see how he traveled but certainly looked like a tight squeeze!
On our way to the mansion we got to take in part of the Bayfront Gardens which included a rose garden, beautiful trees/lawn and interesting sculptures. The sun was out in full force and we were sweating our butts off so we moved through the rose garden pretty quickly and into the shade.
When we made it to Ca' d'Zan aka mansion of the "circus king and his wife" there was a line outside of the place. They were letting 30 people in at a time. We only had to wait about 5-10 minutes. But once inside we were just in awe of the entire place. And unlike Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater house we got to tour in March, we were ENCOURAGED to take photos. So I went crazy with my sweet new iPhone 6 camera! The ceilings were all so decorative as you can see from a couple of my photos below. I really enjoyed seeing the old kitchen and it's appliances. Dustin took a peak at the bar and said "This looks like a hipster's dream come true". Ha! One of the staff let us peak into the old elevator which still works! Right next to it is a huge fancy schmance staircase. Unfortunately we weren't allowed upstairs which was a little disappointing. I would have loved to see some of the bedrooms and whatever else was up there. I think the mansion was at least 3 stories, if not more. Once we were done inside, we moved to the terrace which was beautiful and extended all of the way to the intercoastal. You cold tell they held weddings out there since there were several white chairs and cocktail tables set up. Now that would be some party!
We moved to the other side of the gardens and took photos in all of the super cool plants, trees, flowers, etc. We weren't sure what to make of the giant head in the lawn but it was kind of awesome.
And last but not least on this Ringling journey was the Museum of Art. John Ringling had a U-Shaped 31 gallery museum built to house his personal collection of art pieces. I've never been to a real art museum so it was really fascinating to me. Some of the paintings were two stories high and several hundreds of years old. The gardens in the middle were just as beautiful as the paintings. You could spend a whole day at The Ringling property. And there is literally something for everyone. I loved how there was so much to look at and do both inside and out. It's certainly worth the $25 admission. We felt extra special and lucky that we got to experience everything for free. I highly recommend checking it out. It's worth the drive!
The rain held out until we were walking back to our car from The Ringling. It started as a sprinkle but once we were on the road to our hotel the skies just opened up. There was one point where I had to pull over in a parking lot because my windshield wipers were not going fast enough. I made Dustin take a photo of the kissing sailor sculpture as we drove past in the storm. So much for getting out and posing next to it! Ha! Oh well, his photo still came out pretty good. Here's what it looks like on a nice day.
We got to our hotel room and checked in. We waited out the weather and when it cleared up a bit we went down to the beach. Since it was later in the afternoon the shore was pretty empty. We walked along, feet in the water, and enjoyed the nice breeze. We even had a little adventure of climbing up on the wall, walking around someone's private property and popping out the other side to check out the big rocks. There were just a couple people fishing off them. We walked around and explored for as long as we could. But the sky started to get darker so we decided to make our way back. We noticed a little wedding set up on the beach with a sign that said 6:30. We never saw the bride or groom but I sure hope the rain didn't spoil things!
For dinner, we went to The Old Salty Dog. We were greeted by this young girl who told us she had just moved down here from WV. So Dustin told her which part he was from and we talked to her for a good 5 min about the differences between the two. She told us she had missed 24 days of school and got into 5 accidents thanks to the snow. Um, no thanks! But it's still pretty neat that Pittsburghers are everywhere and so friendly! I haven't met any other sports team fans that are that nice to each other.
Dustin got the dog bites (deep fried chunks of hot dog), I got shrimp, and we got calamari to share. All of it was great and the sauces too! We'll be back for sure. I talked Dustin into hitting up Big Olaf's for ice cream before going back to our room. We had walked by it earlier in the day and I couldn't get it out of my head! We checked it out on Yelp and it had full stars. The only complaint was that it was cash only. That's what ATM's are for - ice cream! We both got one scoop each and walked back to my car. The ice cream was delicious but melted so fast that it was hard to keep up. It was quite the race against time. During our walk it started to sprinkle and then once we made it to the car it was pouring again. We were perfectly content finishing our ice cream in my car while watching it rain cats and dogs. Of course the weather was still awful by the time we made it back to our hotel. I put on my raincoat and we both ran as fast as we could.
We did more in one day than we normally do in a month's worth of weekends. We were wet, sore, and tired by the end of it all but so very happy. We got back home early this morning and I'm still smiling from our adventures. There's nothing like having new experiences with your best friend.
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