We awake to a fine, clear day. Amy goes for a run while I try to wake up. When she returns, we head for the breakfast area on the first floor. The place is packed. It might be due to the rest of the ground floor common areas being under renovation. It might also be due to the hotel being packed. After a short meal, we decide to take one more walk on the beach, this time to the west instead of yesterday's walk east. It is a fine morning and the beach is not yet very crowded. We do notice that a "beach patrol" is driving along the beach making visitors move any over-large tent structures farther away from the water. (There is a line of cement blocks on the beach at least 50 meters from the water; any big structures must be behind that line.) The patrol also get a family group to fill in a very large hole they have dug in the sand. Seems they are very particular about making sure the entire beach stays usable for all.
After our walk, we bid adieu to Orange Beach. Our next stop is Panama City, Florida. The drive along the Gulf Coast is very pretty. The sand is so white. We don't have too long a distance to travel, so we decide to take the slow road through Santa Rosa Island. It is a two-lane road that goes through an area with lots of nesting birds. The speed limit is 25 MPH. The water is a deeper shade of blue than we have seen so far. And the speed limit seems to dissuade other travelers from this route. It is slow, but very enjoyable.
Returning to the mainland, we enter Fort Walton Beach, Florida and stop for lunch at the Original Crab Shack. The seafood meets the high standard set by most of the establishments we have eaten at in the last couple of weeks. It is so very fresh and tasty. Satisfied, we leave the nice restaurant and its great view of the lagoon in front of Okaloosa Island.
It is all going well as we enter the town of Panama City. We get within 5 miles of our hotel for the night, and the going turns south. We now understand why Orange Beach was so crowded: it is the Friday of Spring Break! The traffic is bumper to bumper until we get to our hotel. There is construction on the road, as well, but we finally get into the parking lot.
We patiently queue up to check into our room, but when we finally talk with the one front desk clerk, we find out that our room is not yet ready. We do get a small discount at the Bar & Grill across the street (just inland from the beach), so we park the car and head across the highway to kill some time with a walk and then some Daiquiris. Much later than we expected, we finally get to check in to our room. All the while, cars and college kids are touring up and down the highway. They are having a great time, but it is going to be a long night.
After moving into our barely acceptable room, we cross the highway again for dinner at the place we were previously killing time, the "Barefoot on the Beach Bar & Grill". It is an acceptable meal with some good people watching. The less said about our accommodations, the better. Every Road Trip has to have a worst hotel, and this is ours (we hope).
(Apologies for no pictures. I thought I had some good ones from the slow section of our drive, but I was mistaken. And no pictures worth taking in Panama City!)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment