Ain't No Sunshine

Back from Panama City and there was no sunshine that's for sure. We couldn't have had a better time though. Nan and Ronnie were so much fun to vacation with. If the sun had been shining, we might have had so much fun we'd have never come back. Just kidding.

We left pretty early Thursday morning, so we were in PC at about 12 noon. We couldn't get in our room until 1, so we went ahead and did our grocery shopping. We were on the 10th floor, room 1001 trying to open the door at exactly 1:01 p.m. We were ready for a good time. Jeff's probably gonna kill me, but I just thought this picture was adorable. This is the only hat that he's allowed to wear. Hats just don't look good on him, but I love this one. He's had it about five years, and it's his BEACH hat. He has to wear it at the beach because his head gets burnt to a crisp. When he has this hat on, he's ready for F-U-N. He put it on when we were unloading the car. Unfortunately, it was smushed from the five-hour car ride. Even more unfortunate, this was the only time he wore it. The sun was never bright enough for him to need it.

After getting the car unloaded and everything put away, Nan and I were on the balcony checking things out. The beach wasn't too crowded. Maybe the lousy weather kept some people away. Jeff and I had the master bedroom and it was very, very nice. The king size bed was awesome. We have a queen at home, so the king felt huge. The room was clean, well furnished and, by the time Nan was finished, Cloroxed to the max.

This is what we saw when we looked left off our balcony.

When we looked straight down over the balcony, this is what we saw. We never swam in it. We didn't have enough cooperation from the weather to get in. It looked refreshing. We put our feet in it and it felt pretty good.

I gave Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville a second shot. I ate there when I went down on Spring Break and it just wasn't that good. We all wanted to go because it has a good reputation and the atmosphere is great. We ordered the Volcano nachos as an appetizer. The four of us shared them. I've definitely had better. Nan and I shared a triple decker club sandwich, which was pretty good, but so salty that I drank about a gallon of water that night, which left me bloated beyond recognition.

As I said, I guess you go there for the atmosphere, which is really good. They play lots of Jimmy Buffett music (obviously). And they have big screen TVs playing his concerts from all across the country. This is a big plane that drops out of the ceiling when they play Margaritaville. A huge shaker of salt comes out of the bottom of the plane. It was fun. Go there to have a drink. Don't go there hungry.

Lots of us took our summer vacations at Panama City when we were kids. It's changed so much since then. Nan wanted to take a walk down to where she and her family always stayed. It was called The Fiesta. We stayed there a time or two when I was a little girl. So. . . she and I took a walk down to The Fiesta. It was four miles, two each way. On a flat surface that's not so bad. The beach was sloped and the ocean was chilly, so it was kinda rough. But we made it and we got some absolutely priceless pictures and reminisced about times gone by. Here's The Fiesta as it looks today. The windows are busted out, all the rooms are empty and it's got a sign in the front that says that it's ready for demolition.

The two-mile walk there wasn't so bad, but the two-mile walk back was a different story. I fell down my front porch steps a couple of years ago and sprained my left ankle pretty bad. It's still weak and gets sore if I do a lot of walking. Walking on that sandy slope tore it up. It's still hurting. I'm going to have to wear tennis shoes for a while. Flip flops just aren't supportive enough.

While we were walking and reminiscing, Jeff and Ronnie were golfing on a gorgeous golf course. As I heard it, Jeff played a game of unreal golf. They enjoyed it very much and only got a little wet. We met them after they were done at a beach bar called Schooners. We stayed there several hours. It's right on the beach, so we watched it rain. Then we watched it clear up. Then we watched it rain some more. I think in those few hours, we sampled some of just about everything on their menu. And it was all exceptionally good! We had a crappy waitress. She looked like she had sucked on lemons the whole day. What a grouch! I guess she hates her job. Oh, well.

The most memorable thing we did on the trip was take a walk on Saturday morning. We had all gotten up early and it was raining. Hard. And it was windy. And it wasn't going to get any better for at least the next five hours, according to The Weather Channel. There was nothing to do inside, so why not go out for a walk? I wore a jacket with a hood. Nan had a visor. Ronnie had a cap. Jeff doesn't wear hats, so he had nothing covering his head. That rain was pounding us in the head, in the face, in the legs. It felt like BBs. It was heavy, then light, then heavy. The wind was also pushing against us. It was a big, big workout. And so much fun.

When there are double red flags flying, it means that it's not safe to be in the ocean. Well, honey, they were flying every day except Thursday.

Saturday afternoon, the sun peeked out for about an hour and a half and the beach got crowded quickly. The beach patrol kept coming by and fussing at people that were in the water. The driver of the truck has to actually say over and over the same warning message. I couldn't understand why they don't make a recording so she doesn't have to do that. Seems almost as dangerous as the waves in the water to have a person driving a truck on a crowded beach holding a microphone talking into it. Duh. Maybe someone will figure that one out. Hopefully before someone is ran over.

For the Gulf, these waves were pretty amazing. It was obvious that there was some sort of disturbance somewhere. The ocean looked ticked off the whole time we were there.

This was something I saw after our walk and I just thought it was so cool. I'm sickened I didn't think of it first. Someone will probably be able to buy themselves a nice little beach house with their earnings from this little invention.

You step on it and it mists water on your legs and feet to rinse the sand off. Works pretty well, and you don't have to actually touch anything to turn it on or off. Great idea, huh?

But. . . I had walked in my tennis shoes, so my shoes were full of sand. A gentle mist wasn't gonna touch my shoes. I needed something more. So. . .

Thank goodness, what was once good enough is still good enough. And, in fact, works way better. Probably costs a lot less, too. I just imagined someone at the beach or lake in their cutoff denim shorts taking out their pocket knife and cutting a garden hose making something to rinse their feet with. Then I pictured someone maybe in a suit and tie, in an office with a pencil and paper designing something to try and improve on that. I don't know why, I just found it so ironic that the oldie was still the goodie.

Here's a picture of Jeff and me before going out to eat on our last night. We went to an old, old favorite. Captain Anderson's.

Here we are waiting on our most delicious seafood. Which was, by the way, soooo good. When I was a little girl and we'd take our family vacation to Panama City, we'd always go to Captain Anderson's for supper one night. We'd go early and daddy would walk us around to look at all the deep sea fishing boats that had come in and were unloading their catches. That's still a big attraction all these years later.

We all had fun, with or without the sun. Don't know when we'll get to do it again, but we definitely want to. Our family vacation with the boys is in three weeks. We're going to Tybee for nine days. Yee-haw! Shortly after that, Jeff's fall football will start pretty heavy. Yuck. I'll be a football widow till November.

Special kudos to my guest blogger. She did a most excellent job. I enjoyed reading about her day's events. By the time she got the hang of it, I came home. I hope she'll start one of her own.

My boys did so good while we were away. They kept the house nice and tidy. They know what their mama likes. And they don't like to hear her scream. HA!

Haven't done much today except play around with my pictures. Nan only took 398 of them. She has a great camera and it takes pictures really fast, so she's able to make lots. Between mine and hers, I think we made about 450 pictures. You'd think we were there for two weeks. It was just that good, I guess.

Till tomorrow. Live, love, laugh.