We're Not Dead, We're Only Sleeping

Well, It took several days and it was quite a struggle but we have finally conformed (succumbed) to the vibrant pulse of Panama City Beach...yawn, scratch. We're not dead...we're only sleeping.

The beach bed mattress man was late this morning, Whoa! What was that all about? Must have been something serious...but he looked the same when he finally showed up. He probably leads a double life or maybe he's a terrorist. Good thing we're staying on top of that. Y'all can rest easy 'cuz we got the mattress covered...

Now, today was the day when we planned to get wet -- we were going to enter the ocean. We walked across the beach and waded into the surf...up to our knees. It was sunny and 72 degrees but a little windy and they had that yellow flag up so we decided to be extra careful. But, the water was fairly warm so we did OK. There was no one else on the beach so I guess we were pretty brave to be out there under those conditions. We have seen folks walking around wearing coats.

We had lunch at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville down the beach road by the mall...the one just across from the pier. The place is huge, like other restaurants in town, but the lunch crowd was about five tables. Of course, we had to wait to be seated and then the question was "sun or shade?" Damn, so many decisions. We found an acceptable place and then waited for our server  to show up.  She arrived and dragged a huge umbrella over so we were in the shade whether we wanted to be or not. Prices were high and things didn't look all that good but we finally got fish and chips and a beer.  We asked if they had malt vinegar for the fish..."yes we do".  We should have asked..."would you bring me some malt vinegar?" We finally got some and it was a big improvement on everything except the beer.

We stopped off at the Winn Dixie, our local wine merchant, on the way back home. We've taken a liking to Argentine Malbec.  It's our one vice....that and nap time.

Supper was the nightly forage through the fridge and pantry. Not much more to report and this is wearing me out.

A Stroll on the Beach

Today we managed to stay out of the car for the entire day.  We had good weather again even though they kept saying that it might rain. We decided to just hang out close to home. Paul chose to bask in the sun on our balcony. Since it faces south the sun is our constant companion when outside...plus you get to watch the various goings on on the beach (not much).

One of our high points is watching the guy with the mattress and umbrella concession come out at 9 AM in his ATV and set up the beach beds. He sets everything up and then retreats to his little booth a few hundred yards down the beach and  watches to see if anyone lights on one of his beach beds...then he races up on his ATV to collect his money. Yes...entertainment is hard to find but he's the only show for most of the day.

I decided I was going to take a walk on the beach down to the fishing pier. The pier is clearly visible and didn't seem that far away...just a little barefoot stroll down the beach. Walking ankle and calf deep in the water was nice. The water is still warm enough for swimming. Folks were out looking for shells in the surf...there's not many. Most of the shells are broken. There were a few other walkers out on the beach...including a large pelican who was maintaining authority over a small section of shoreline. People would come to a stop when they reached the pelican, not sure what to do...he wouldn't fly away and wasn't going to budge. Finally they would make a wide detour around him and continue up the beach.  It took an hour to reach the fishing pier and an hour to walk back to the condo...about 4 miles all together. That was much farther than I had anticipated walking in bare feet on sand and broken shells. But it was an enjoyable morning and the few other beach walkers were a friendly bunch.

After I recovered from my walk and Paul recovered from basking in the sun we decided it was time for lunch. There was a little cafe and oyster bar across the street and up the block that didn't look like much but had great reviews. We figured we could risk it and strolled over to get something to eat. Wow.  I started out with a pint of Guinness and Paul had a pint of Stella Artois and things went up from there. I got an excellent plate of baked oysters and then a couple grouper tacos. The grouper was wonderful. Paul got a big plate of fried shrimp with fries -- lots of food. We had to have more beer but, of course, it was happy hour...how fortunate can we get?? I suspect we will make it over there again.

Later in the evening we went up on the roof of the condo (in the meeting/event room) to listen to a aging folk singer who has a standing gig each Wednesday singing to the vacationers. He has a long list of songs that he does so he opens it up for requests. Every song requested for the first 45 minutes were sad tear jerkers. What fun that was!  Finally things lightened up and it turned out to be a semi-enjoyable evening. He ended the evening with "Run Around Sue" and "This Land is Your Land" which were big improvements.

Since we were still full from our big lunch we gave up on eating supper and just grazed on stuff we had in the kitchen.

Introducing Kids & Dogs to the Ocean

Panama City Beach is a popular and accessible beach destination and, compared to some other places, it has a family-friendly reputation and is pretty laid back. Countless thousands of kids have been introduced to the ocean here, including my daughter, Jill, and it has been fun watching the parents and the different methods they use. Some just take the kids out and stroll along the beach and let them see it without any pressure to get in or even get wet. Others take the toddler-age kids in their arms and walk into the surf  out to knee depth and jump in the waves. Some parents encase their kids in various inflated devices and encourage them to play in the waves. The kids may, or may not, take to the ocean and if they do, the taste of sea water is the second shock to their system.

I enjoyed watching the families and the young dads trying to get the kids in the water. The moms are usually in charge of the camera and sometimes the grandparents are nearby offering encouragement. Today we got to see a puppy go through the process. A couple guys were on the beach with a puppy trying to get him to fetch a stick. Nope...he didn't want to. He wanted to run and check out the beach. An older dog was there with them and it was concerned with keeping track of the puppy. There were so many distractions...sea gulls, waves, people, odd smells. The guys finally just sat on the beach and let the puppy investigate it on his own.

Not too far down the beach road is a fairly large mall so we went there for lunch. We had lots of options but settled on the Hof Brau Beer Garden, a Munich-style beer hall with tables inside and out and German music. The menu was strictly German but with a little American, Turkish, Indian fusion going on. The waitress was dressed like she had come straight out of Bavaria. It was a good place to sit and watch people. This place, and others, must be crammed full of peope during spring break or the summer season.

We had the dunkel (dark)  beer with big, soft pretzels and some brats with sauerkraut. The food was good but the music was predictable...think Beer Barrel Polka. The men's bathroom showed a little bit beer garden humor.


We walked around the mall a little and over to the fishing pier. The mall at least had some activity going on...much of Panama City Beach seems to be hibernating.

One place that wasn't hibernating was the Sea Breeze Winery.  They have 100 acres of muscadine grapes, which makes them the largest vineyard in Florida. Muscadine grapes are much different from the standard variety grapes we are used to in Missouri. The wine is quite different as well. We tasted about eight wines and some special fruit wines plus a port and a sherry. I have to say that the wines were drinkable and might have been great muscadine wines but I wasn't familiar with the type to say it it was good or bad. Paul is more familiar with it and was happier with it. We had a good visit with the attendant and talked wine and wineries for about a half hour. We left with a few bottles of wine.

We ended the day back at the condo watching a soccer game and having sandwiches.

Tuesday Morning

Enjoy... 8 AM on the beach...

Lazy Day (#1)

We didn't do a whole lot today. The weather is great but started out cloudy for a few hours. We had coffee and breakfast on the balcony and spent most of the morning just enjoying doing nothing.

The morning is taken up with pelican and sea gull watching. The pelicans can dive from 30 feet into the water and always come up with a fish. The sea gulls will pose on the beach trying to look cute until some poor sucker decides to feed them and then all hell breaks loose. Every sea gull within earshot shows up and demand to be fed.

After resting from our morning efforts, we decided to try finding a bocce court someplace. Not an easy task. Apparently bocce hasn't been as popular here as it is in other parts of Florida. People we asked said they never heard of bocce and didn't know what we were talking about. The online phone book said that "Joey's On The Beach", a NY pizza joint, had bocce courts. When we finally found Joey's they didn't have bocce courts and didn't have a clue what bocce was. The pizza was good, however.  When we got back to the condo we asked the front desk attendant...she thought that bocce was something like rugby. She found a place for us but it turned out to be a company that installs bocce courts. By that time it was too late to check them out. We will call tomorrow. There is at least one bocce court in the town of Rosemary Beach, a little ways up the beach but not exactly local.

That's about it.

Obligatory Sunset Picture

This is off season and a Sunday. Panama City Beach is almost empty compared to what it is during Summer or Spring Break. Looking up the beach, there are more trash cans than people. And they still pay a guy to drive up the beach and empty the trash cans every day.  Well, that's what we wanted...a place just to chill out.

We are on the 3rd floor of a 16 floor high rise so we are almost on the beach. The surf is pretty loud which is cool. The weather is really nice. People are swimming in the gulf and hanging out on the beach. We have a nice balcony so we can just sit and enjoy it.

I'm not complaining but the combination of the bright sun reflecting off the water and white sand means that sunglasses are mandatory...and I left mine at home. One of our first stops today was to get sunglasses so I didn't have to squint all the time.

We ate lunch at Sharky's, a local tiki bar on the beach, They had football on the TV so we watched part of the Titans - Texans game. The food was good and the beer was cold.

I took a walk on the beach in the afternoon. There were a couple families out playing in the surf or in the sand. Some kid named Luke wrote his name in the sand in several places. I guess he wants to be noticed. There were several young guys out on paddle surf boards. They made it look effortless. I don't know how they kept standing up. They used long-handled canoe paddles (sort of) and managed the surf with no problems.

I walked about a mile up the beach and ran into only about a dozen people. The pelicans were busy diving for fish and the shore birds and gulls were busy working in the shallow water.

The sun sets here about 4:30 and by 5:15 it is pretty dark. I managed to get several pictures as the sun was going down and then my camera battery died. Probably a good thing...but I got the obligatory sunset picture.

We went to Shuckum's Oyster Bar for dinner. Lots of advertised places seem to be closed until next March.

We stopped off at the local Winn Dixie for a few groceries and then headed back to the condo and watched some TV.

This was a quiet day -- what we wanted -- and it was good not to spend hours in the car,

Have You seen Anybody Who Looks Like Me?

Brookhaven looked better in the morning than it did at night but not much. We took advantage of the "continental breakfast". We were located next to the Walmart and discovered that, for a mere $4.00, we could take a carriage rides around the Walmart parking lot. The carriage was pulled by miniature mules or ponies...we couldn't decide which.

We headed south on I-55 looking for the junction with I-10 which would take us east. Too bad that we didn't have a map...Note to self: next time bring a map. We crossed into Louisiana and kept going until we were in the middle of New Orleans.

New Orleans was not where we wanted to be...we missed a turn somewhere but, oh well, here we were.

Anyway, we found I-10 and headed east, We crossed back into Mississippi and decided to stop at the Welcome Center. We picked up  a map and some route information and Paul had a smoke while I used the facilities. The place wasn't that big but we lost track of each other. They were serving coffee so Paul got some coffee and asked "Have you seen anybody that looks like me?"  The young black woman serving the coffee looked at him funny and said no, she hadn't. So a few minutes later I showed up to get some coffee and asked "Have you seen anyone who looks like me?" She stopped and looked funny and said "Somebody else asked that question and yes, and he gots the car keys"  Paul and I met up outside and were talking when she walked by and laughed and was happy we found each other.

So on we went...along the Mississippi gulf shore. You can still see a lot of hurricane damage. We saw some in New Orleans and some of the trees were torn up in the forests along the highway,


One thing we learned at the welcome center was that Joe Bonamassa was performing a concert at Biloxi this evening, Dang...we could have worked that out better if our timing was different. Note to self: check concert schedules!!!


Once we were past Biloxi we were in Alabama and on our way to Mobile. We want to come back and spend a day or so in Mobile before we head for home. We passed the battleship Alabama, which is open for tours and there are other things we want to see.

Mobile is an interesting place and it looks impressive. We will have to check out what there but I'd like to see Ft. Blakely...one of the last Civil War battle sites.

Bellingrath Gardens and the Jefferson Davis home are nearby if we have time and can find them.

We kept going east and crossed into Florida and went through Pensacola without seeing much of it. By this time we were seeing lots of water and most of the highways were elevated over swamps or bayous.

We made it to our destination in Panama City Beach at about 5 PM but it was already dark. The sun goes down early here on the far eastern edge of the central time zone. We checked in and relaxed. There was an old performance by the Rolling Stones and Muddy Waters on PBS that we sat and enjoyed. The sound of the surf is very relaxing and it was good to be done with the travelling for a while.