Location: St. George Island State Park, FL
We left the ritzy Emerald Coast with the upscale resorts and headed South. We took the Intercoastal Route which took us through the seaside towns. First up was Panama Beach, a tourist vacation town with lots of miniature golf, waterslides and souvenoir shops. Think Wisconsin Dells or Branson Missouri. Panama City was next which left a lot to be desired. Once you leave this area the water changes from the deep emerald color and looks more like the Gulf waters of Mississippi. Here's a picture of the typical view of the shore. Lots of marsh with no sand.
Pulling into one of the towns we stopped at the Piggly Wiggly. For all my West Coast family and friends, yes, there really is a Piggly Wiggly and not just in the movies. Let's just say Whole Foods has nothing to worry about.
We stopped for lunch at a seaside shack in Port St. Joe's. We ate at the outside bar with the craziest waitress. In fact, most of the patrons were amused by just how wacky she was. One of the customers who had been sitting there for quite awhile said, "We would have asked her for the check, but we were afraid her head would explode." Everyone cracked up and agreed. Ned got a grouper sandwich and I got an ahi tuna salad. It was really, really good. This place leaves a lot to be desired, but it sure has some great, fresh seafood.
Right before we headed onto the island of St. George we stopped for some roadside hot boiled peanuts. I hopped out of the car to grab some. The two guys hawking their freshly boiled "goober peas" were pretty funny. They said to me, "You from California? Why'd you stop and by our peanuts?" I responded, "I heard they were so good that we had to drive across the country for them." They were really tickled about that. They kept saying to me, "You stop for me or my peanuts" and let's just say things went downhill from there. Freshly boiled peanuts...mmm--mmm.
The Island of St. George is off the coast and accessible by a really long bridge. One half of the Island is vacation homes and a typical beachside community. The other half is a State Park. It's really remote and the last time we stayed here we had the place almost to ourselves. Apparently, the word has gotten out cuz this place is packed! We thought for sure arriving late in the afternoon on Memorial Day things would have died down. Nope. Campground is full (yes, I booked this way in advance) and the day beach was pretty crowded too. Fortunately, the portion of the beach near the campground was pretty chill.
Once we arrived I couldn't wait to get in the water. The temp was 96% with 76% humidity. Of course, we rode our bikes to the beach schlepping the usual. They have a mobility mat that is supposed to make the beach wheelchair accessible instead of a boardwalk on the sand. I wasn't too confident that it would really work, but it made me feel like they had laid out the welcome mat for me. Hey, Cousin Cary, how about giving it a try and let me know what you think! Of course if you get stuck, don't say I didn't warn you!
The water is really warm, so different than the ocean in Northern California. We had a blast boogie boarding in the water and swimming in the waves. Here's Ned taking the board out for some action.
Today I definitely caught some waves and even have photo documentation to prove it! So fun.
After dinner Ned got a hankering for some ice cream. Our first date was at Tucker's Ice Cream and Ned wanted to recreate our first date in honor of our anniversary. Since last night's ice cream was such a fiasco he said, "Let's bike up to the ice cream place we saw on the way in.' My first reaction, was "What ice cream place?". If you reference the map above we are pretty far up the tip of the island. A nice bike ride after dinner sounded fun. Wellllll...10 miles later we finally reached the ice cream parlor. It's quite the island event too! Here's a pic of Ned enjoying our anniversary ice cream treat. We have a 10 mile ride back and it's getting dark. I have wi-fi so I'm posting this now. Wish us luck. cya tomorrow...I hope.
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