Bradenton/St. Pete, FL - Memorial Day Weekend

Friday/Saturday~ Left with a group of friends around midnight Friday night, and got to FL in the wee hours of the morning. We made it to our friends' place around 8 am with a full day ahead of us! We were all pretty much tight on our budgets, so our friends cooked breakfast. Then we hit up the Sat. Morning Market in St. Pete just to see what was there. We found a public parking garage nearby for $5, which works out fine when you split it among 6 people. ;0P So, we walked around the market for a bit, bought a items, and went to find some shade. We walked to BayWalk, a new-ish shopping center to see what was there and to grab a bite to eat. It has your basic shops, a movie theater, and a Dan Marino restaurant. Why he has a restaurant is beyond me, but it was out of our comfortable price range so we headed to Toojay's which worked out nicely. After lunch, we walked to the Pier (upside pyramid tourist site). On the way there are a couple of local museums, lots of parking lots, and a little beach to the left. As expected, there were a lot of tourist shops and a hat shop(!) where two from our group bought some head coverage. We took the elevator up to the top floor and went through a restaurant to see the Bay, or...part of the Bay anyway. There was a small airstrip close by which was neat because planes were taking off every few minutes. We stayed up there for a bit to enjoy the view. Next stop was the Dali Museum - we took a blue trolley ($0.25) to get there. The driver was pretty comedic as he explained the sites on the trolley line. The Dali Museum was the last stop. FYI: The trolley stops running at 5 pm. We went inside, got a wonderful lesson about some of Dali's paintings, and took now pics because they weren't allowed. It's amazing how much detail he put into his work! We left around/after 5 pm and hoofed it back to the parking garage. Ate dinner at our friends' place - I believe we had frozen pizza and salad - and watched a movie.

Sunday~We woke up to have breakfast at "home" again, then we went to the Prime Outlets. It looks pretty big on the directory but it's very manageable in terms of walking. It's all one level and you can find many of the same shops in a mall (which is how it works, right?). We were there for a few hours, then headed back to our friends' for a homemade lunch. Later that afternoon, we went towards Tampa Bay and stopped by for ice cream at Joe's Eats and Sweets. It was pretty good! There were basically beaches all around, so we picked one, parked, and started walking. Didn't stay there long as it took us a while to get there in the first place. We drove to a hotel (Holiday Inn) where we knew there was a restaurant inside. There was a pretty decent view of the "island" we were on, and the rest of my group got appetizers. After maybe a half hour drive or so, we found Bird Key Park which is across the street from the Bird Key residential community. It's a quiet little place with a gorgeous view of the bay; there's a little sidewalk that takes you under the overpass where there's lush, green grass and windswept trees. It was pretty awesome. We were leaving as the sun set. NICE. Drove around a bit to get fast food to go. That was quite an ordeal as many places close at 9 pm.

Monday~ It was our last day, so we didn't do much. We had to leave in the afternoon to get back home at a decent hour. Woke up later than usual in the morning. Stayed in for breakfast, talked, and packed up most of our things. We drove around to a few local places for lunch but they were closed, so we ended up going to Bob Evans Restaurant. The food was all right but I wouldn't go back. We made a pit stop at the Prime Outlets again for some last minute echanges/shopping, and then parted ways with our friends. I had a pretty good time overall. I'd definitely recommend looking up restaurant and shop hours ahead of time, especially if you're interested in particular ones at particular locations. We didn't have a strict itinerary to follow, so everything was nonchalant. And...that's that!