Florida #4

Sunday morning, we rounded up everything, packed up the Tahoe, and set off in the general direction of home. Check out was painless, and we were on our way. We had decided to head East toward Apalachicola for a couple of reasons. First was I wanted some oysters from the home of Apalachicola Oysters, and second was this was where the “Old Florida” was supposed to be. The drive was great, and over around St. Joe we took a side trip out onto a barrier spit and St. Joseph’s Peninsula State Park. All along the way after we left Panama City was truly a different Florida than we had seen before. There were no high rises, and mostly older one story Florida homes, intermixed with some newer ones, mostly all on stilts for hurricane survival. Considering the number of times I have heard about the huge storm surge in Apalachicola Bay, this is understandable. Also along the way, we found a l ot of pretty cool beach areas. The sand is white and the beaches very pretty. It is mostly very low key and laid back. On the drive out to St. Joseph’s Peninsula State Park, we found a killer area that we think we’ll come back to visit. There are rental houses all along this peninsula that face the gulf and are very private. The mainland in this area also has great houses. (Cape San Blas Rd.) Vickie did some checking on the Internet, and the prices are not outrageous. It sort of reminds me of Kitty Hawk or Nags Head NC. Before they got all built up.

We continued our drive and ended up for lunch in Apalachicola. It is a very quaint old town, and very friendly. We found a little waterside restaurant (Boss Oyster House, slogan “Shut up and Shuck” also known as “The Boss”) for lunch, and scored an outdoor table right on the railing complete with ceiling fan. The dock was right there and the pelicans were entertaining the whole time. The restaurant specialized in oysters, any way you wanted them, but also had a complete menu to go along. It also had a display just inside the door where it had been featured in “Southern Living Magazine”. Brenda got a chicken finger basket, Jerry got some Lemmon Pepper Grouper, Vickie got some Smoked Mahi Mahi, and I got a dozen oysters steamed on the half shell with butter, and red beans and rice to go with them. I also got a bloody oyster shooter for an appetizer. We were talking with our very n ice waiter about hurricanes, and he said the water of the last one was up to the roof and the kitchen ended up full of mud. The owners thought about not reopening, but salvaged the place again. Glad they did, it just doesn’t get any better, and the food was supreme.

After lunch we followed Brenda across the street to this incredible nautical antique store called The Tin Shed. It was literally a tin shed, but it was full of the most interesting stuff. We picked up a couple of souvenirs, and had a great time looking around. After that we headed back out on the road. A ways after that, the road turned North and we said farewell to The Gulf. A good time had been had by all. Jerry took over the driving duties for about half the afternoon when I got sleepy, and we ended up in Tifton GA for the night. We did our usual parking lot Internet search and ended up with a Quality Inn, sort of in the mid price range, with king beds, high speed internet, a microwave/refrigerator, and free hot breakfast. It is the old style motel with outdoor walkways, probably was a Holiday Inn some time in it’s life. The rooms were large, clean and reasonable. We were abl e to park 8 steps from our rooms and had an adjoining door between the rooms. We ordered a pizza from a local delivery service, and conked out watching “The Most Dangerous Catch” on Discovery. Found out this morning that Brenda closed and locked our door, closed our curtains, turned out the lights, turned off our TV and shut the adjoining door for the night. We were both asleep and never knew she put us to bed.

The hot breakfast was one of the best complimentary breakfasts we’ve had. Numerous types of pastry, waffles, scrambled eggs, sausage links and grits were on the menu. Well done by a friendly courteous Hispanic lady. All in all this Quality Inn was a good choice. Now we’re off possibly to home tonight.

More later.

Wes