Sarasota Soundings

We often hear people lament that Sarasota has no night life. And indeed, it seems that the sidewalks do roll up rather early. But if you happen to be out and about on foot—as we were recently—here are a couple of examples of “the inner Sarasota.”

We caught our resident Gecko prowling around the fascia above the lanai. We don’t know much about geckos—for example whether or not they’re entirely nocturnal, or simply photophobic—but we certainly don’t see much more than his head poking out from the eaves above the kitchen during daylight hours. And he seems to do the majority of his vocalizing (along with a chorus of neighborhood cohorts) only after dark.

If that wasn’t enough action for one night, we took a short walk down the street where we live and found these beauties. Night-blooming cereus. The plant is a vine-like cactus. Each flower opens only once, after which it closes and simply hangs from the tree that supports the plant.

We learned later that we could have found some better samples of Moonflowers—as they’re also known—over on Orange Avenue, but it was already past our bedtime.