St. Pete Beach, Day 3 and 4

We started out Day 3 by having breakfast at Gayle's Restaurant. I would never have given this place a second look, but since it was highly recommended by locals, we decided to give it a try. It wasn't much to look at from the outside - or the inside, for that matter - but it was clean and the waitress was very friendly. Yes, that's right. Waitress. Just one. Think Waffle House, but smaller, and more "quaint". The food was delicious - and the grits were the best I've ever tasted.

After breakfast, we headed off to locate the nearest Target. Why? Well...we had attempted to pack all of our clothing into one large suitcase so that we just had one checked bag, and then we each had a carry-on bag. Unfortunately, the large suitcase weighed 56 lbs. (yes, I forgot to weigh it) - so they wanted to charge us $115 to check it. We had to scramble around, trying to take things out of it and cram them into our carry-on bags to get the weight to under 50 lbs. Not fun - and we didn't want to deal with it on the return flight - so we needed to buy a small suitcase/duffel bag. (Like we didn't already have a ton of them at home...sigh.) Lesson learned - next time, just plan for two checked bags. Anyway, one of the great things about this area of Florida is that the signage is awesome. We didn't have any problems finding our way around. We managed to get to Target quickly, find an inexpensive bag that locked, and since it was a Super Target, I even got a tall soy peppermint hot chocolate while I was there.  :-)

Next we hit some local stores to pick up a few things for the kids. That didn't take long, so we headed over to Ft. DeSoto State Park. Beautiful area - unfortunately, it was so chilly & windy that we really couldn't enjoy it much. Plus they were renovating the fort, so we couldn't tour it. We'd love to go back when the weather is warmer!

We couldn't decide where to have lunch, and finally opted for Skidder's. We laughed every time we drove by it (I know, I know - we have warped senses of humor), but it looked nice, so we figured "why not?". Oh. My. Gosh. Best lunch place EVER. Turns out that Skidder's is a little Greek restaurant with homemade soups, bread, & sandwiches. Positively delicious!! Definitely try this place if you're ever in the St. Pete beach area.

For dinner, we went back to Sea Critters. I had grilled grouper and Gus had the grilled mahi mahi (again). We really love this place - the food is soooooo good!

Sadly, we had to return home the next day...happy to see the kids, but sad to see the snow...

Love, love, love the Tampa/St. Pete area and we will definitely be back!