Skip to main content
Help Center Community Shop

Heading to the beach next weekend.....working to get ahead so the routine keeps going

Locust Fork
My aunt has asked me to go with her down to the beach next weekend.    Her son is 16 and he's going with a friend's family down to Panama City for the first part of the week.....so she thought it would be fun to finish the week out by meeting them down there and us staying for three days.   Its just a little break, nothing major....but she did find a penthouse thing for us to stay in.    I'm a people watcher, so I typically like to stay a bit lower....but I'll take anything by the ocean.

It means I've got to work all weekend to get ahead enough to make up for my days I'll be gone.      Larry is actually taking some vacation days while I'm gone.....which is hilarious because he's going to be "home" and off work while I'm gone.    He's got some things planned he wants to get done and my middle child is coming here to take care of the dogs while I'm not here.   Larry loves spending time with her, so I'm sure that is the main reason he's taking off work.

We went a couple years ago and took her son with some of his friends.   Its strange to see what Panama City has become.   Its just a narrow highway with hotels mashed in every available spot, a Publix, Walmart and a million of the junk/tshirt shops crammed in between a few restaurants here and there.   

I don't like the way hotels are done these days at all.    There is no front desk.   There is no local number to help you with anything.   Its all managed via internet with codes given for everything by email and texts.   

I've got to get her to plan a trip with me to Orange Beach.    I like that a lot better....but her son is at that age that he and his friends like the Panama City scene.   
0

Comments

7 comments

Date Votes
  • mark christian
    While I appreciate you spending money in Florida, why not go to Gulf Shores? Everything in Alabama is less expensive than in Florida.
    0
  • Locust Fork
    The kids are at that age that they depend on the parents dragging them everywhere.....but they don't want anything to do with you once you get there.     Its funny how things go.....young ones are dragged all over the place doing every single thing with the parents.   The preteens are miserably dragged everywhere and you TRY to coax them into participating in every single thing you do.     The young, driving age "kids" want to go do all kinds of things....but they aren't old enough to be set totally free yet.   Then they are early 20's and you hope you did a good enough job of raising them so you don't have to bail them out and they can pay their way in life.

    We're at the "driving age" but not responsible era with her son.    So, a lot of their friends families are all doing the Panama City thing.    They plan to all be down there around the same time and the kids can walk to a lot of stuff....Pier Point and the strip has lots of things to oogle over.     Last time we went we got shirts made.    I insisted on a turtle theme.



    I don't know what I want this time????    We will see! 
    0
  • JimmyJack
    Going near the beaches in FL must want the virus!
    0
  • Locust Fork
    Pshhhh.....I'm disgusting enough to have built up an amazing immune system, while washing my hands enough to reasonably avoid whatever craziness might be around.    A healthy middle ground is my current way of life.   If it gets me for driving in the center lane, so be it, because I'm not going to limit myself into a miserable paranoia. 
    6
  • JimmyJack
    Thats the attitude that is setting records every day!
    0
  • Smitty500mag
    Good luck on your trip. 

    I wish you guys could have seen the beach all along the panhandle of Florida back in the early 60s. In the photo below I was on a fishing trip with my uncle just east of Destin, FL back in 1962 and there was hardly anything there. There was a fishing pier and one travel trailer park and nothing else for several miles in either direction.

    Many times during those 2 weeks I would go swimming at the beach near where our trailer was parked and not see another soul on the beach. Miles of white sand and no buildings or people to mess up the view. I had the same view that the first explorers and Indians had when they came to that part of the world and thought how they must have marveled at the sight as I was. It was more beautiful than any picture I've ever seen of crystal clear blue/green emerald water and snow white sand. It looked like powdered sugar. The reflection of the sun in the sand was as blinding as the sun it's self.

    I quit swimming near the end of the second week because one afternoon there were 2 big dark shadows in the water that came swimming by just a few feet from me and those 2 silhouettes were a whole lot bigger than me. They may have been dolphins or maybe not. The owner of the pier had a picture of his son on the wall at the pier standing beside a 500 pound shark that he had caught off of the pier just a few days before we arrived and I decided I didn't want to find out if it was a shark or not that that was swimming by me.

    A few years later when I was married my wife had 2 first cousins, 14 and 15 year old high school boys, that were killed by sharks in Jacksonville, FL. They searched for several days for the boys and only found the parts of one of them. It was a very sad time

    The travel trailer was one of the old Shasta models if I remember correctly.  

    0
  • Locust Fork
    It sure has changed since I was younger.   When I was younger we used to go every year and my dad would fish off the pier while we hung out on the beach with my mother, sometimes cousins and a couple neighbor kids would go along on the trip.    I loved the part where we would take off to the arcade or do the parasailing thing.....even that has changed into something anyone could do.    I remember when I was finally old enough to do it.    They set you up on the edge of the shoreline and tell you to lean back and pull the straps down on your legs so you can sit.......then they take off in the boat that is connected to you.    Of course I didn't pull the straps down and I got this major wedgie thing going on the whole time, but it was still a lot of fun. 
    0

Please sign in to leave a comment.

Recent Activity