Greetings from my happy place!

[vraiblonde]

Bike week has ended and it's so quiet here now. Spooky.

Today we went to St. Andrews park and kayaked in the lagoon. Got an up close and personal dolphin encounter. Foxhound picked up a stowaway - a little lizard that was sunning himself on FH's kayak and didn't get noticed until we launched. The lizard crawled all over FH before finally perching on his hat for the last part of the trip, then he jumped down and ran off once we landed.

The park is terrific and it was a glorious day - sunny, low 80s, breezy. The perfect day for a paddle.

 

[FireBrand]

I think the real story of Tally-Ho was our waitress or I believe they refer to them as carhops. First off she mentions that her wrist is hurting her and how she almost dropped her grandson. Jamie runs off to get our drinks. Vrai mentions to me that she appears too young to be a grandmother. So doing the math, you figure it's possible for someone to become a granny at the ripe young age of 36-38.

Jamie is back with our liquids and Vrai casually asks her how old she is. She replies 38. She gets our food order and off she goes. After we got our food we are chit chatting and Jamie mentions something that I wasn't really paying attention to until she said the magic words you don't hear everyday. "Since I got out of prison".

And then the floodgates were opened wide. For the next several minutes we got a down and dirty of Jamie's life of crime. Her latest stint was 22 months for drug dealing. Until that time, her longest incarceration was for 6 months. She has 25 arrests and there is a warrant out for her from Texas. Normally random people don't share this sort of intimate details with me, but it isn't such a rare event for Vrai. So is it a male/female thing? Maybe I have an unsympathetic face. Who knows. Just another afternoon in Panama City, FL, I guess.

'yu sure dat yo wuzant @ da IHOP in Lex Park

 

[Bann]

Bike week has ended and it's so quiet here now. Spooky.

Today we went to St. Andrews park and kayaked in the lagoon. Got an up close and personal dolphin encounter. Foxhound picked up a stowaway - a little lizard that was sunning himself on FH's kayak and didn't get noticed until we launched. The lizard crawled all over FH before finally perching on his hat for the last part of the trip, then he jumped down and ran off once we landed.

The park is terrific and it was a glorious day - sunny, low 80s, breezy. The perfect day for a paddle.

...and to think - our price for taking the kayaks out were much less per person than a boat ride to possibly see dolphins!

Since I am usually weenie girl and literally jump out of and nearly walk across the water if seaweed so much as brushes my leg - it nearly gave me a heart attack when I saw the fin of the FIRST dolphin I spotted. I believe it went something like "HOLY SHxT! I just saw a dolphin!" I was pretty nervous. Then it was really cool to watch them swim all about -we think we counted 5 or so. Then, later as we were heading back to the area we needed to return the kayaks, we saw more. All the dolphins we saw looked like they were quite young, or maybe just a smaller type. They were super frolicky and graceful. Not intimidating at all, really. I did get really startled once, thinking one was coming in too close, but I think Vrai & maybe FH had the closest encounters. It was a fun afternoon and the dolphins were definitely the highlight and a bonus!

 

[vraiblonde]

...and to think - our price for taking the kayaks out were much less per person than a boat ride to possibly see dolphins!

AND we got to work off our Muy Wayne-O dinner.

 

[vraiblonde]

The stowaway

 

[Monello]

 

[Bann]

AND we got to work off our Muy Wayne-O dinner.

Which, if anyone ever gets to PCB, is a MUST GO TO place to eat!

My first real Tex-Mex food experience and it was just insanely good. I've never had a more flavorful soft taco in my life!

 

[Bann]

The stowaway

View attachment 122578

May I snag your pic?

 

[Monello]

Just a couple of weeks left at PCB. It's been an adventure for sure.

3 weeks ago I retired my old Ford Explorer. It's served me well for the last 11 years. It's a tow vehicle which means it's been modified to pull behind the RV. That's 1 of the reasons I had it for so long. Well I promised I'd get a replacement when we were in Florida since it's my home of record and easy to do the DMV paperwork. I now have a 2017 Jeep Cherokee. I still have to have it modified to tow. Just waiting for the base plate to show up so the work can be done. If I haven't mentioned it before, I hate vehicle shopping. The Panama City used car dealers are right out of central casting. Lots of double talk. But it's over and done. I will miss driving a stick shift vehicle.



Kayaking is a lot of fun. Just watch out for the wet seat. I'm good for about 2 hours before parts of me start getting sore. Kayak spelled backwards is kayak, which is the direction you will be going if you kayak in a river with a strong current. Good thing St. Andrews bay doesn't have much of a current. Cost wise, it's very reasonable to spend a few hours on the water. Don't forget sunscreen.



Fishing! I like to fish. Luckily for me Vrai selects campgrounds with an eye for possible fishing locations. Our campground has 2 stocked ponds so I can just walk out the door and fish. PCB is surrounded by water. The problem is where to go. I don't have a particular style so I'm open to anything. I've gotten a few bass out of the ponds here. Lately I've been challenging myself and fishing just topwater lures. If you bass fish, you will know what I'm talking about. The lure floats on the top of the lake. It imitates a frog. When the bass hit the lure they have to launch themselves out of the water. It's quite exciting to watch a fish leave the water and go airborne after a lure. Which leads to my next story....

Saturday evening I made a few casts. It was right around sunset. I had 5 fish try to eat my topwater lure but I didn't hook any. And the bugs were starting to come out. So I set the alarm for 6am to go after topwater fish. On my 5th cast early Sunday morning I got a medium sized bass. My lure has 2 treble hooks. The rear hook was in the fish's gill plate. While trying to remove the hook the fish squirmed causing the middle hook to embed in my right thumb right near the nail. In the same motion the fish flops off and falls back into the water, so I wasn't able to get a picture to boast of my fishing prowess and taunt Misfit. Now the hard part comes. I try to remove the hook with my left hand. It's not as easy as it sounds. Then as a last resort I have to inform Vrai of my misfortune. As always, she's a trooper about my misadventures. We double team the hook and get it removed from the lure but it's still firmly planted in my thumb. Off to the ER for some early morning hook extraction. The ER here sees a lot of people with hooks in them as you can imagine. It took the doc all of 1/4 of a second to remove the hook. In case you care, this is how it was done, but without the Maker's Mark sedative.

 

[Monello]

Saturday morning I was greeted with "So what do you want to do today?". Normally I just shrug my shoulders. But I did have something I wanted to do. Take a helicopter ride. We took the intro flight when we were in Myrtle Beach last year. This time we took a 20 minute helicopter ride over the beach and out to our favorite state park, St. Andrews. You can really appreciate how blue and clear the water is. We saw pods of sting rays and quite a few dolphins on our trek. The photos we took aren't as vivid as I remember the various sights being.











If you ever get a chance to do a helo ride, I highly recommend it.

 

[vraiblonde]

causing the middle hook to embed in my right thumb right near the nail.

This one wasn't as gory as the time you hooked yourself in Marathon. That one about made me pass out.

 

[Bann]

 

[vraiblonde]

The reason I love PCB so much is the casual, yet not trashy, vibe. Swimwear is almost a uniform, and most restaurants near the beach just ask you to not wear a *wet* swimsuit in their establishment. That may sound trashy, but it comes across as beach party and tiki. Women don't wear a lot of makeup or boof their hair out. Nobody comes here to enjoy fine dining and dressing to the nines.

Naples more caters to the yachting crowd, dahling, and everyone there looks like they just came off a golf course. In middle Keys, it's all about fishing and the attire and demeanor reflect that. PCB kinds of splits the difference. It's just my style and perfectly comfortable for me.

 

[Monello]

PCB as seen from the air

 

[Bonehead]

Best batten the hatches for the next few days, be safe.

 

[Monello]

Best batten the hatches for the next few days, be safe.

Thanks. Not much we can do but just wait it out. We leave Friday and breaking camp in the rain is 1 of my least favorite things to do. As luck would have it Mobile, our next stop, isn't too far down the road. Once the sun comes out everything will dry up quickly. Even today with it being super cloudy and a few showers, it was still in the low 80s.

 

[Bann]

I'll be keeping you in my thoughts and prays! Be safe out there!

As much as I know you love, love, love PCB - I can't wait to hear all about Mobile. You all are definitely in my maternal grandmother's peeps' territory from PCB west through to NOLA.

 

[Merlin99]

Hello Panama City Beach! Have you missed me as much as I've missed you?

This place is crawling with families and young adults - spring breakers - but our little nest is peaceful and serene. Tons of kids running around, of course, but camper kids tend to be well-behaved. Just playing and having fun, not stealing your stuff or screaming obscenities like other kids.

Last night, exhausted from our drive and the complications that arose, we went to dinner at Wicked Wheels. I had a burger without the bun, and Monello had...ready?...chicken tenders. I've never seen him eat a chicken tender in the four years we've been together until last night.

Today is my first of the month, so I'm glued to the computer. Hopefully I can get everything done in a timely manner and go play.

My son and his wife are in the Air Force at Tyndall and have the exact opposite idea of the place. Once the tourist season dies down it becomes a ghost town, when tourist season is on it prices junior military out of the goodies. A trip to Walmart and back is an hour and a quarter without shopping.

 

[vraiblonde]

A trip to Walmart and back is an hour and a quarter without shopping.

Traffic is indeed a bear when tourists flock. It's not so bad on the eastern side because everybody is doing the stuff on Front Beach and clogging up 98. We had a very slow ride back from Seaside yesterday because of beach traffic.

Which is what we did yesterday - drove to Seaside. When I was there a couple weeks ago I spotted Bud & Alley's pizza joint, with a beach front patio that was so inviting I had to grab Monello and go back. You sit on little cozy little cushioned couches and your table is more of a coffee table. After lunch we walked around and bought cronuts (which is Monello's new favorite pastry). Tons of people, kids playing on the lawn - yes, everyone running around in swimsuits. Seaside is a super cute little town - it's where The Truman Show was filmed. It's a picture perfect beach town.

Last night it freaking POURED. I woke up about 4am to rain beating on the roof of the motorhome, but this morning it's sunny and clear. Mother Nature's little love tap sent a number of the vacationers packing, which always amuses me. It'll rain, and they all scurry away, but if they'd waited a few hours it would be sunny and they could get back to recreating.

Merlin, how are your son and his wife liking Tyndall, other than tourists clogging up the works?

 

[Bann]

I shoulda gone with you all to Seaside. FH didn't enjoy our walkabout when we stopped in on our way to Destin.