Wednesday, October 1 - Day 14

Panama Beach City

Drove 300 miles yesterday from New Orleans to Panama City Beach.

You know you are in the South when it becomes easier to say “you'all” even to one person, Honey!

We decided to stay another day here to enjoy the Gulf water and the food. This morning instead of eating the hotel breakfast we followed some advice and went to Thomas Donuts to have their idea of cinnamon rolls and some local food. Our North Country cinnamon rolls have it all over these puny imitations. The rest of the breakfast, ham biscuit and egg and ham,egg and cheese on a bagel (not me) were no better than what we have at the hotel. Lesson learned. We stopped at a dive shop since we had read about all the wrecks here and will probably come back for some scuba diving. Got that all straight and got some advice for snorkeling at St. Andrews State Park. Beautiful place right on the edge of the Gulf. The whitest sand you will ever see. Pretty hot on the beach but the water was about 80F. Very nice. The beach formed a long crescent. About 100 yards in front of the beach, running roughly parallel to the beach is a 300 yard long jetty of rough stones. There is a current running north to south along the inside of the jetty. We quickly got the idea of swimming out to the north end and drifting with the current to the south end then swimming back to the beach, walking to the north end and doing it all over again, 3 times. There were plenty of reef fish along the jetty stones, damselfish, sergeant majors, snapper, fairy basslet, crabs, and others whose names we can't remember. Very nice, very hot, but very nice. We both got a little sun red; me on the face and she on the back but nothing painful. 

On the way back from snorkeling, we spotted a Krystal, the southern rival to the White Castle. Lisa got to eat her first Krystal and enjoyed the experience but still prefers the WC. That'a girl!

 

For dinner we were advised to go to Granny Cantrell's for real southern cooking. It was an all you can eat buffet of really good common food: fried chicken, fried catfish, pork chops, meat loaf, and really well prepared vegetables: okra and tomatoes, flat green beans, black eyed peas, collard greens. But the topper was the excellent desserts: peach cobbler, chocolate cake, great pecan pie, the best carrot cake, strawberry cake and other goodies.

We decided to go to the beach after dinner. Walked down and sat near the water and watched a most amazing sunset. Crimson streaks and smears on dark clouds with fiery gashes in them and aqua marine blue between clouds over the ocean water. “Anselisa” took lots of photos which you will probably see attached here.

We are as far south as we are going on this trip. We are half way thru the trip and will begin to return North along the Atlantic tomorrow. So sad.

Photos 1 & 2– jetty area where we snorkeled at St. Andrews State Park; 3 – sunset progression photos – notice photos 5 and 6 are the same except one is zoomed in; notice the white sandy beaches

sunset with white sandy beach