Brett and I had a week long staycation in mid-December. We drove 2 hours south to Manasota Key, a barrier island off Englewood (south of Venice, Florida). We rented a old condo right on the beach and spent the week just hanging out. We got down there too early to go to the condo so we took a long walk next door at Stump Pass Beach State Park. The weather was mild, around 60 degrees, and we had the park almost to ourselves.

Someone had made a shell tree.

On the beach side looking towards town. It’s weird seeing an empty beach. The shelling was pretty good and I came home with a jar full of shells.

We hiked down the beach and then back up the backside of the barrier island.

When we got to our condo we spent some time just chilling on the beach.

We were going to have an early dinner but I told Brett we couldn’t leave until sunset and I’m glad we waited. This was the only night we had one. This was the view from our condo.

As the sun went down I ran out to the beach to shoot the above with my phone.

This was taken from our living room.

We spent some time reading on the beach and went for long walks. We went on a long dolphin tour but more on that later.

One morning we drove up to Venice and walked along Caspersen Beach, know for a good place to find shark teeth. There were many people here with sifters looking along the rocks for them.

We then went to the Venice fishing pier and had lunch nearby. It was a little chilly this morning as we walked on the pier.

The last day we were there was sunny and warmer so we spent some time hanging out on the beach and walking around the area.