Last time, I recommended staying by the water to beat the summer heat. Since I live in Bradenton, I tend to gravitate toward Manatee County options, but those aren’t limited to a sandy Anna Maria stroll. Here are two ways to ride in style along our northern shorelines:   BEACH HORSES I could claim that [...]

One way to beat the heat: An ice-cold cocktail from one of Sarasota’s many talented bartenders. Perhaps this blog post should start with “It was a hot and steamy night…” Because really, what’s new, right? It’s been so hot lately that we’re all practically suffocating. I’ve taken to proclaiming that it’s “too hot for pants”; [...]

I’ve been out of school so long now (10 years as of…jeez, like this very second), summer doesn’t have the same sigh-of-relief feeling it once did. Summer, instead, comes slowly, in a frog-in-a-pot kind of way. Around Easter or so, traffic begins to lessen during my daily commute between Bradenton and downtown Sarasota, and sometime [...]

Last weekend, I sat in the football stadium at Manatee High School in Bradenton and watched a handful of students I work with walk across the stage to accept their diplomas. I love the celebration, the sense of accomplishment, the talk of transition and uncertainty about the future. I remember the feeling of that first [...]

The beach is always on the list of summer plans–but we want to find out what else there is to do in Sarasota during the off-season. When I moved to Sarasota from Orlando in August 2006, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had just turned 23, was fresh out of school, and had been [...]