Florida

We just returned from a nice week in Florida.  This trip was a little different than the others because we went down on Lee's motorcycle. Gary and Emily took his down too. We left friday  afternoon around 3 or 4.  We rode down to Monroeville, AL to spend the night. That happens to be the town with the famous ' To Kill A Mockingbird ' courthouse is. I didn't get to see it though.  Saturday morning we were up early and after our continental breakfast, we headed out.  We made it to the house before lunch, so we went ahead and arranged to get an early check-in.  Dave, Emily, and Maci drove my car down saturday morning. They left really  early so they made it down in time for us to all go eat Five Guys for lunch.  That's always our first stop. The rest of the day we unpacked and all sat around on the 3rd story porch, we ordered pizza. Bruno's pizza is delicious!  Brett and Lila arrived that evening so all visited for a while and headed to bed.  The weather was great the whole week. We got lots of beach time in and  some pool time. That pool is the most awesome pool ever. 12,000 square feet! One night we went down for about an hour before it closed. No one else was out there. IT's so pretty at night because they wrap all the towering palm trees with white lights. IT's just a real low glow of lighting.  Our house also included a golf cart which provided many hilarious moments. One evening all of us girls decided to go for a spin through the neighborhood. ( it was pretty deserted . maybe 30% occupied at this time of the season , so not any traffic )  We rode all over the place and were joking that we were going to get in a high speed chase with the security guard, who also drives a golf cart.  Well, we decided to try to see if a mysterious gate code on my check in paper would work on a gate at the back of the neighborhood, but it didn't, and guess who shows up just as we are turning to leave..... The security guard!!!! AAHHAHAHa! So EMily halls it back to the garage real fast and pulls it in and we shut the door and sit on the porch, like we were not the loud giggling golf cart riders. HAHA.  One night the guys did some timed racing  ( from one palm tree to another ) to see how fast it was.  And on one of the last nights, they did get it to pop a wheelie....

The ocean was the clearest I've ever seen it. You could be up to your thighs in it and still clearly see your toenails.  That also made it easy to spot fish in the water. One day me and Maci were out floating in about waist deep water and Mom and Melody ( a long time friend from Fl )  were about 15 -20 ft closer to the shore. A shark swam between us!  It was about 3 ft long, not a big one. He just zoomed right by not interested in us.  I was the only one  that saw it as it passsed me and I told Maci," lets get outa here! "  There was a man and his family standing on the beach who was waiting on us to get out of the water. He said " did you see that? It swam right between you!"  They had been watching the big dark ' thing ' swim down the beach. Thanks for the warning man.  We saw some dolphins a couple of different days.  One day we went to St andrews state park, and there was a little school of tiny fish like penne pasta size.  Well, I had a litte floaty mat thing I was floating on, and they decided they liked my shade.  They stayed under me everywhere I went. My little groupies.  Maybe they thought I was a boat.LOL! I was affraid they did and they liked to eat the stuff off the hull. I kept waiting for them to nibble on my legs..
 We ate  some good food while there. OF course we had to go to schooners. It's beach front, has live bands ,and it's open air.  They also have a drink that is the bomb called sunset splash. Yummy!  We tried Pineapple Willy's and it's my new favorite.  It's out on a long covered pier that goes way out over the beach.  The food was good, and I loved the atmosphere. They have a signature drink, the pineapple willy, that is awesome too. We went to the big maze after dinner. That thing is entertaining. It will get you lost in seconds! As usual I was the last out.  I think that was my 3rd or 4th time to do it too....haha.
  One day Brett rented a Harley so him and Gary and Lee, went on a little cruise down the coast for a few hours.  They took some pretty pictures with there bikes on the beach.
   Our last night we went to Hofbrau Beer Garden for dinner. It's a German place. it was interesting. I order herbed cheese, which is a huge chunk of cream cheese and some others that have herbs in them, and it comes with a HUGE fresh baked pretzel and mustard.  Then we went across the street to Tootsies Orchid Lounge. The original Tootsies is in Nashville and is world famous. Many country singers started off singing there, and many country songs have been written inside the walls.  They opened this one up a few years ago in Pier park. It was GREAT!!!!! The band was playing all the good stuff from Hank to Carrie underwood.   So fun!


 That is an extreme shortened version of our week in Florida. :o)