The Dog Beaches

So I woke up this morning and decided I was not going to sit around and waste another beautiful Florida day. So I dragged Casey out of bed, packed up the car with a few essentials, and we headed out for the afternoon.

Dogs, in general, are not allowed on the beaches around here. I don't know if that's a city or state thing, but we had to do a little digging to find pet friendly places. So I had read about a little park in Bird Key, aptly named Bird Key Park, that allows dogs. It's not too far from here, so we set the GPS to get us there and off we went, excited to play with Olivia on the beach for the first time.

Bird Key Park ended up being a strip of grass alongside a parking lot that was about 1/5 of a mile long and maybe eight feet wide. No beach, either, just rock. We made the most of it though; we walked from end to end, Olivia got to tinkle, and Casey waded in up to her ankles (in the bay, not in the tinkle).

So that killed about 20 minutes of our day.

We sat there wondering what we were going to do to amuse ourselves, when we remembered that there is supposed to be a reallly great dog beach in Venice, about 20 miles south. So back to the car we went. We took the scenic route through Osprey and Nakomis on Tamiami Trail, and got to the beach about an hour later (thanks, Danny, for looking up the address for us!)

Quite excited, we sprung from the car and headed for one of the few dog beaches in our area. There was a little trail that connected the parking lot to the dog park, and the first thing we saw when we rounded the corner was a small lake and a little wooded area. The next thing we saw was this Beware of Alligators sign. Now the thought of leading our eight pound puppy to her death wasn't very appealing to us, so Casey carried Olivia to the enclosed area that we hope was gator free.

What a great beach this was! It was very windy, so the waves were aweome! There were skimboarders there, a bunch of dogs (most of which were 50lbs+ and scared the bejeezles out of Olivia), a few clouds, and not crowded at all. Unfortunately the battery on my camera died, so the only pics I have were taken with my phone.

Casey played in the ocean pretty much the whole time, doing her spin on body surfing. We tossed our water ball back and forth for a while, jogged up and down the beach, and tried to coax Olivia in to the water, but she was having none of that. So we spent about an hour and a half there and had enough. Olivia slept the entire way home and is passed out at my feet as I type this. Casey is sitting in front of the television (go figure) and I am in serious need of a shower. So I'm off to get cleaned up and then we're going to find the Winn Dixie that we've been searching for for days! Tonight's movie is Cheaper by the Dozen 2, in case any one wants to join us!