Florida #1

Well here we are in Panama City Fl.

Uneventful day. (Saturday) Drove about 400 miles and ended up in Milledgeville GA. Exercised Jerry’s Lowrance GPS and our new 2008 atlas keeping Interstate percentage below 1%. Stopped for lunch at a nice Sonic, and used the outdoor picnic table. Vickie entertained herself by finding 62 cents in change lying around in various places. Stopped at a reasonably priced Days Inn after using the WiFi in the Holiday Inn Express parking lot to find out it and the Hampton Inn were over priced for the area. Days Inn was a good value for the price. Rooms were large with king sized beds, refrigerators, and microwaves. Free WiFi. Watched Kentucky Derby, and Jerry’s horse broke both legs after running second and had to be put down. Headed out to dinner to Pig In A Pit, after scoping out it’s menu in the phone book and on the web site. Surprise to us-----it wasn’t there. Must have moved or closed. Headed on down the street considering possibili ties, and I decided we’d try Judy’s Country Kitchen that advertised a $6.00 buffet on the big sign. Turned out to be the buy of the century. All they had was the buffet, but it was good well prepared food, hot and tasty. Oh and it was all presided over by the owners. Judy turned out to be Mr. and Mrs. Kim. Great staff, good food, and an incredible value.

After a good night at the Day’s Inn, we partook of the all carb all the time “Continental Breakfast”, and loaded up ready to leave. Stopped on the way out of town and fed the Tahoe its $93.00 ration of liquid fuel. We continued down across Georgia, and into Alabama. Scenery was uninspiring, but familiar. One point we did find a good photo op however where the road construction guys sort of missed it a little when painting the lines. Seems like one crew started from one end and one from the other. When they met in the middle, the double yellow line was off by about 2 feet of matching. Otherwise the back roads of Alabama offered the usual fare of huge old satellite dishes, icicle lights, and rusting cars. As we got closer to Panama City, the motorcycles coming the other way got thick. (we found out later the previous week had been bike week in Panama City with about 60,000 participants)

We arrived at the Marriott Legends Bay Point, and received a courteous check in assigning us to our Villa on the top floor with a view overlooking the bay, pool, and golf course. The Villa is very nice with most of the standard (for Marriott) amenities. A neat addition for this place since it’s in Florida is a screened in porch over looking the bay complete with ceiling fan. This time of the year in Florida is great for the porch since temperatures are not the burning high 90’s of later in the spring. From the porch we were able to hear Al the one-man band at the pool doing weird covers of beachy sounding songs, complete with trumpet at times. We unpacked our stuff, mixed a drink and headed down to the pool. We got a pleasant surprise in that the pool was heated, and very comfortable. (oh and Al mercifully quit before we got there) We lounged in the pool watching the sun go down, until we were sufficiently waterlogged.

After soaking, we headed for the room, cleaned up and went out for a light dinner. The place we were headed for closed about 15 minutes before we got there, so we ended up eating in a little café in the main building with a limited menu. We were able to find suitable (if over priced) fare, and had an enjoyable end to our day of traveling/arriving. Tomorrow morning, we have an “owners” reception and orientation breakfast. (this is where they try and set you up for appointments to sell you more time-shares, and sell you activities) After that we will hit the grocery store, and probably don sunscreen adjourning to the pool for the afternoon.

(Mon. morning)Turns out this time share is all sold out so the breakfast was just a “welcome to here” and told us about all the activities available in the area. We went to the breakfast where Vickie won a designer tee shirt (one of the door prizes) and then hit the grocery store as planned. After the grocery store, we had a light lunch and hit the pool for poolside bingo. Jerry won a pack of cream cheese that he donated to charity, and Brenda won a complimentary Marriott picture frame. We all spent the afternoon lounging in the pool, reading, and unlaxing. The girls signed up for jewelry making and had fun doing that. Both Jerry and I had been having some abdominal distress that seemed to be related to the fish sandwiches we had Sunday night. We both suffered this morning and on into the afternoon. He finally improved early in the evening. I didn’t feel a lot better till this morning. (Tues) We had planned a big diner of T-bones, lo cal corn, salad etc for last night, but it got postponed.

Last night Jerry and Brenda introduced us to Wii. They had bought a game a while back and brought the stuff with them. We played tennis, baseball, bowling, and golf. What a cool intuitive video game. For anyone who has been living under a video game rock (like me), Wii is a new type of video game that uses accelerometers inside the game controllers to control the action on the screen. You actually make the game work by swinging the controller like a tennis racket, or baseball bat etc. I, for one, have never been very good at video games, but I really like this one. Also for us chunky 60ish kind of folks, it actually gives you some exercise while playing a video game. (you can work up a sweat playing virtual tennis) I’ve heard they have a steering wheel that you put the controller in to pilot a racing game. If that works as good as what I tried last night—I’ve got to have one.

We just had a cool event; a giant Navy hovercraft just came up the bay—what a sight that was. Also we had a helicopter looping around back and forth over the bay and golf course just in front of our porch. We decided the term “stealth helicopter” is an oxymoron. Today, we are off to check out the State Park near here on St. Andrews Bay. It is supposed to have one of the prettiest white sand beaches anywhere. More later.

Wes