St. Pete Beach Sunsets, Toasted Monkeys, And Weird Moon Pictures

I thought this maxi dress was going to be perfect to wear as we transition from Summer to Fall (yeah, Fall at the beach. Really!), but I've been wearing it so much all summer that I'm probably going to be sick of it by the time Fall arrives. For sure it will be in threads by next summer. I love it that much!

Our trip to St. Pete Beach was FUN! The sunsets were AMAZING! And living in Pensacola Beach, I am very spoiled when it comes to amazing sunsets. St. Pete Beach faces west so the sunsets are right over the Gulf of Mexico, which is amazing on an entirely different scale than Pensacola Beach where the beach faces South and we get the sunset going down over the bay and the Santa Rosa Sound. Totally different and amazing as well.

There were many cool beach bars within walking distance of our hotel and we frequented as many as we could fit in in the short time we were at St. Pete Beach. I loved the name of this one - Toasted Monkey.

Very fitting since we saw several people who were indeed toasted and acting like monkeys. In a nice way though.

Of course, we took Phantom with us since he has to have his cancer and heart medications and special foods. The first day while I was doing a 3 mile run, I bought this new snappy red harness for him so he can go outside with us without running off. He didn't like it much at first (still doesn't) and did this dead possum pose where he would lay there dead weight and refuse to budge even if I poked at him and tried to bribed him to get up.

When I finally gave up and said, "Okay, lay there! But I'm going outside!" and then I would go outside and stand by the door, he caught on quick and popped right up. Even Phantom can overlook a little indignity if it means getting outside for a while.

The people who worked at the hotel were very impressed at the way we had "trained" Phantom to walk on a leash. Trained! Ha!

In this creepy looking picture we were trying to capture the moon behind us so the camera flash was turned off. Right after sunset, before all the stars came out, there was only the crescent moon with a very bright star next to it that we are pretty sure was a planet. There was several debates on which planet it was. I say Venus because isn't that one called the "evening star'"? Or is Venus the "morning star"? My second guess is Jupiter.

The Murph thinks it was Venus too. Below is a little better. It doesn't look like fairies are about to land on the Murph's head like the above picture does.

We got several pictures like the last one. Our camera's not high tech and neither are we. A couple from Germany had a high powered super camera that was taking some amazing pictures of this. The Murph offered for them to swap cameras with us, but they weren't interested. They got a good laugh at our poor camera's expense though.

Anyway all they got are silly moon and planet pictures and who even knows for sure if it even was a planet for real. We got an entire light show!