First up, let me say a big HI! to Art and his dog Bentley...which, I have to tell you, is a Colorado Palo Alto! Truly! He told me so:) You can fool some of the people some of the time, Art! We met him and his two people companions and their dogs outside the Starbucks at St Armands Circle in Sarasota. They were much fun to chat with and we left them with the idea that they should always go to New Zealand, and NEVER to visit Australia:)....it's a 'kiwi thing'! They got the idea...as did all the other people sitting around them:)
So, here you are Art and Bentley, as promised:)
Art and 8 yr old Bentley (really a poodle!!!)
Bill's (from Marina Del Rey,California) pup.... oops...they saw other dogs approaching and mahem ensued!
What a cutie...I got the evil eye though, as you can see!
At about 9.30 this morning we decided to go to Sarasota. We wanted to go back to St Armands Circle, which we only had 10 mins to visit last time (8 days ago), and also to visit the Selby Botanical Gardens.
We were in luck! Wednesdays are Orchid days. Fantastic. $19 got us both in.
WOW! what a fab. place, and so well tended by the most volunteers we have seen anywhere. The place was literally crawling with them. We were most impressed.
First up we visited the orchid house. I had brought extra camera batteries with me just in case, and sure enough, I needed one in the little Canon very quickly. Having two cameras to choose from is a good idea. The Olympus still takes the best photos, in my opinion, but I have more choice with the little one ...so easy to operate. I haven't used the Olympus for so long, I need a refresher course!!
Here are some of the pic of the bunch...pun intended, of course:)
(*** To see them larger, click on the photo and then, to get back to the blog, click outside the photo)
This orchid is fascinating, don't you think?
Well, we didn't just take Orchid photos. This is a large garden, and so much to photograph...I wont bore you with all the details, so enjoy the photos.
By the way...Waz just told me we have 85,000 + photos on file. It is taking up 220gb!!!! That is half of the storage space on his new computer/ WOW!
Of course we had to take pics of the Bromeliad flowers.
...and I have always had a love affair with Begonias. 
Cant remember the name of this one, but it isn't dead! Seriously!
More Begonias
Bird's Nest fern
Dead parts of the Stag Head Fern
Anthurium
..oops, another orchid:)
Begonia
and another Orchid.
Pitcher Plants
Aren't they stunning?
Someone had cut the Bromeliad blooms and placed them in Buddah's lap.
Cycad fruit
Koi
The trails were so clean and tidy...it was foggy and I didn't allow for change of light, sorry.
All the signs were so beautifully printed
Across the lawn
Sago Palm fruit
Blossoms of HUGE Bromeliad
African Tulip Tree flowers on the ground. They dropped around us like little bombs.
Morton Bay Fig from Australia. NZ has a few of them. Love the root structure.
Waz and I have decided that we will build a tree house:) It was much cooler up there!
This is a fern
Australian Tree Fern. The unfurling frond is known as a Koru in NZ. This is the symbol that you find on the tail graphics of the Air New Zealand planes.
Another variety of Birds Nest fern
This little Squirrel didn't seem to care that we were interested in what he was doing.
The gecko was hard to spot, initially. He is on a beautiful Bromeliad flower.
Isn't this just so stunning?
Ornamental Kale
Thumbergia Vine. They also come in white.
Loquat flowers and fruit below
I love Banana flowers. See the tiny fruit emerging from the base of the flower?
..lastly, this prickly Cycad. Cycads are fascinating. One of the oldest forms of plant life...the Dinosaurs of the plant world.
It was now 3.30pm. We had not eaten since Breakfast (it was a good one!), so we went into St Armands Circle across Ringling Bridge, to find food. We sat down at 'Venezia' for a Wood Fired Pizza. Thin crusted, lots of meat (incl. Italian Sausage..yum!) and mozzarella. We walked about 10 paces from there, after eating the whole 12 inch Pizza between us, in short shrift....and into a genuine Italian Gelateria. Guess what? They even had SUGAR -FREE Gelato! Glory Be! I had the Raspberry variety of that. It was heaven!:) Waz had cookies and cream, and it was to die for. I had a TINY taste!
We walked the whole circle...in and out of the shops, with no time schedule, which was nice. We didn't have to be back for anything in particular, so we enjoyed being free spirits.
We did pick up a take out Starbucks though, for the drive home, after chatting with Art and his mates for a bit.
Driving home down I75 wasn't too bad, although there were enough people txting to drive us spare...you can tell who is on their phones by the weaving all over the lane. Aieee!
Lots of Traffic till we passed Venice, and then light until we got off at Kings Hwy and then home to Port Charlotte.
It was the first thing we did when we opened the door to the boat...hook the cameras up to the computers and download all the day's photos. So exciting to see the gorgeous colors of the orchids.
This is Soul Food! I cant keep the smile off my face when I look through all the photos. We looked through all of Waz's 450 photos...give or take, also. He is complaining of sore shutter finger! ha!:)
A good days work.
Now, we are going to shut up for the night and go to bed.
Ciao for now. I hope you have enjoyed the photos.
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