9/24-26/22–Saturday, Sunday, Monday
My cousin, and traveling partner, has a place in Anna Maria Island. A few months ago she asked me if I’d like to go down with her for a girl’s trip. YES, OF COURSE! I love this area. The beach is perfect with white sand and shells, and usually very calm, clear water.
HOWEVER! Right before we were getting ready to go, a “tropical system” was developing. As our husbands were sending us off, one was all…”have a great adventure!” While the other was all…”you guys are nuts!” Haha!
We usually fly from Lehigh Valley Airport on Allegiant. It’s a super small airport, and way better than Philly! It’s less crowded, usually reasonably priced and the flight is quick. I have the Allegiant credit card, so besides priority boarding, I get one free drink of any kind. They have these new, cute little mixers!
At this point the Tropical Storm/Hurricane was supposed to be centered somewhere around Tampa on Wednesday, which is just north of our location.
Our other cousin that lives in Bradenton picked us up from the airport and drove us to the condo. We had to take stock of the grocery situation and hit the store. Already there were signs for limits on water, and it was practically sold out, as well as toilet paper.
We got Publix subs to have for dinner. (If you haven’t had one, I highly recommend!) We did want to check for water somewhere else, and luckily the CVS on the island had some! Here’s a gorgeous sky while crossing the bridge.
This evening was pretty uneventful. We did see that Jim Cantore was going to be in Clearwater Beach which slightly panicked us since we were just south of there.
Our plan for Sunday was a beach day! And it was perfect to say the least…
It truly was the perfect beach day. We stayed until just before dinner time. The beach was actually pretty full of people considering a hurricane was on the way. We didn’t see anyone on the island really preparing their homes or businesses yet.
We went home and showered and headed out to meet our other cousin for dinner at a new-to-us restaurant called Old Hamburg Schnitzelhaus.
This place was SUPER CUTE inside! It was like we were sitting in someone’s kitchen.
Here’s a peek at the menu along with some specials:
I couldn’t pass this goodie up!
There were so many good things on the menu, that I really couldn’t decide…
I finally decided on the Beef Stroganoff! It was DELICIOUS!
Someone else ordered the Italian Schnitzel:
And someone else ordered one of the specials:
There was also a side of the warm German potato salad. It was good!
None of us were still hungry, but we saw a waitress carrying this past our table to another family and couldn’t resist ordering our own. This is the Apfelstrudel and it was AMAZING!
We all really enjoyed this restaurant, and I would definitely eat there again!
Monday we woke up and wanted to have one more beach day before we left. We still had perfect weather!
As we were getting ready to leave, the clouds were rolling in. They were not even from the hurricane yet though! This was just a normal Florida afternoon rainstorm on the way.
The beach was noticeably less crowded. Preparations were underway now on the island. We saw several businesses boarding up with the same supplies that they used for Hurricane Irma. We also saw people getting their sandbags to put at their houses.
Once we were back, we showered, ate dinner, packed up and got ready to head to Orlando. I had booked Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort with my DVC points on Saturday when we arrived. We decided leaving Monday would be better to try and avoid a ton of traffic fleeing Tampa on Tuesday.
Up next…Orlando Adventures–Hurricane Ian
Taryn's Mad Hatter Adventures 