Dave's birthday was the 20th so we decided that was a good excuse to take a weekend trip. We both had Friday off so we loaded up Winnie and headed for the West coast. Our destination was a cozy mom and pop RV park called Camp Venice Retreat. Venice is south of Longboat Key and north of Captiva.
This place has a great 'old Florida' feel to it. We were on the water in a large site. We arrived early afternoon on Friday February 22. We set up, checked out the rest of the campground, then headed over to the waterfront restaurant for a late lunch.
Snoke Haven was within our RVpark, but yet a separate place with small cottages for rent and a great little restaurant on the water. We had some really good food!
Now that our bellies were full we decided to had out by car and explore the local area before it got dark.
We headed to downtown Venice.
We walked around downtown Venice checking out some boutiques and restaurants...cute town. We got to the beach just before sunset and as we were walking we heard music and realized a local church was having a worship service right on the beach..it was really cool!
We explored a bit more by car until it was too dark, then headed back to camp for a quiet evening with a movie and snacks.
On Saturday, we headed out bright and early to explore as much as possible before we headed to Port Charlotte to see the Tampa Bay Rays play their first game of Spring Training.
We drove through Venice and as far as Punta Gorda. Punta Gorda was really quaint and cute...must go back! We also saw some very nice beaches...we will have to go back and spend some more time in some of these spots!
After leaving Punta Gorda we headed to Port Charlotte for the Tampa Bay Rays Spring Training Opening game.
Well, it was a nice ball park, a beautiful day and a lot of fun even though we lost!
After leaving the game we headed out to find Matlacha, a funky beach town I had read about in Coastal Living magazine. If you blinked, you missed it, but it was a cool town. We found a great place to eat at and checked out some of the shops and local neighborhoods on the outskirts of downtown. I love communities where every house is on a canal! So cool!
We checked out of our Venice Beach camp ground Sunday morning and took a drive through Myakka River State Park before heading home. it was a long but fun weekend!
We are looking forward to our big trip in April!
Until then...
Blessings,
Misi and Dave
You stumbled on my all-time favorite place in this country. We go every year for our anniversary and wouldn't trade it for anything. Camp Venice Retreat is the best vacation we've ever had. If you haven't tried sharking (my term for shark tooth hunting) then you have to go back and do that as well. I know you wrote this blog a few years ago so hopefully you have already returned and done that. We get literally hundreds of them every year and that's only going to the beach two or three times. I have to check out this quaint little colorful town you have discovered when we go back in May. Thanks for the awesome trip down memory lane and gorgeous pictures.
ReplyDelete