Live Trip Report, 6/16-7/2

[BeachbumAggie]

Yahooooooo, I'm on vacation, I'm on vacation, I'm on vacation!

I left Arlington, TX Thursday morning late and drove to Jackson, Mississippi with a carload of Mexican food for my friends in Mississippi that are in serious Mexican food withdrawels! Hubs flew into Jackson after work and we visited our friends for the evening-great start to our trip!

Slept in a bit this morning, stopped in Hattisburg, Mississippi at fabulous Leatha's BBQ for an early lunch and made it on to Pensacola Beach by mid-afternoon. Our free room booked with Hilton points at the beachfront Hampton Inn wasn't ready so we hit the beach for a couple of hours and found 15-20 pretty shells, not big but several augers, olives and a few pretty bivalves and one pretty little conch type shell-all with no critters in them, of course! The water was very calm, especially for this late in the day, the water was quite clear but there was a little green stuff but not the slimy kind that sticks inside your suit so that's good!! We got checked in, cleaned up and then drove around Pensacola Beach east end neighborhoods and down to the west end as well.

The sun was starting to set as we were driving to the west end and we got some great sunset over the bay shots. I like the beach here and I like that I always find shells when we stop through but I greatly prefer Destin and SoWal for more dining and entertainment options! On to Flounders for dinner-turns out MacGuires owns them, we actually ate at Flounders when we came to Pensacola when I was a kid, it was the only place I remember there even being to eat when I was a kid!

Anyways, we had a great waitress named Chelsea and we loved the creamy seafood spinach dip and the 18 cent chowder, hubby had shrimp platter-good fried and cocktail, pretty good grilled, average popcorn shrimp and coconut shrimp, good hushpuppies!! I had the blackened triggerfish with citrus beurre blanc and mashed potatoes and asparagus-yummo, I would eat this fish on a regular basis if I could!!!

We got key lime pie to go for dessert-their serving is a half a pie! She said normally they stack it 3 pieces high but in the to go, they just put half into the container for us! We took a nice walk on the beach when the weird orange moon came out and then returned for a shared piece of pie and diet coke-ahhhhhh, life is good! We r chilling in the room now. We are off to a great start!

I'll be posting on this post so stay tuned for more fun and food in the panhandle!

 

[BeachbumAggie]

So we ate a piece of the half a key lime pie late last night; it was good but not great and not good enough to mess with packing up to carry with us today.

Saturday, slept in a bit, grabbed a bagel at the Hampton's free bfast and drove down the beach road to Navarre-lovely drive, often very close to the gulf waters that are a really pretty shade of blue green in that area-you can see highway chunks in the sugar white sand from the hurricane a few years ago though-kinda weird. There's a great state park that's a day park in the middle of the island-very nice pavilion areas with picnic tables and several bathroom facilities in case anyone is looking for a nice day trip-maybe 3 people there when we drove by this morning.

Drove down Hwy 98 East then dropped down Hwy 30A to Grayton Beach fitness center to get a 2 week membership with 24 hour pass for my stay-I need to work out if I'm going to eat all of this fattening food!! We were going to try Nick's but it's not open for lunch so we hit our favorite Stinky's Fish Camp for lunch-we love dinner here and this was our first lunch. We had a very sweet server named Savannah, she's from Georgia! We started with crawfish tamales-small but very very tasty! Hubs had shrimp basket and it was very tasty as always, I had the surf and turf poboy-this was greatness!

Half roast beef debris with cheese and half fried shrimp on wonderful slightly crusty bread-best poboy we've ever eaten outside of New Orleans and better than many we've had in New Orleans! They cook their fried shrimp perfectly IMO-just the right amount of coating and seasoning. We drove around a while and called Royal Beach Rentals to let them know we're in town early if early checkin became available.

On to Seacrest Beach shopping area and a long stint window shopping at Richard Arriaga's Pearls Gone Wild-I could buy it all if I had the money! Then to Sweet Jeni's for a chocolate peanut butter cupcake that was pretty good and some extremely good Nutella gelato (my favorite flavor!) that we shared.

Royal Beach Rentals called while we were there and we got ot check in at 2pm to our Cassine Gardens townhouse. It's a cute unit, very clean and well stocked/well organized kitchen, generous number of towels, too! Unpacked and chilled a bit after a busy couple of days! I hit the Publix and got some bfast foods and some Bunny brand bread and yeungling for hubs-two treats not available in Texas!!

Then back to chill and make some fresh pina coladas for me-yeungling for hubs and a nice stroll on the beach for a while as sun was setting-ahhhhhhh, relaxation! I served as photographer for a family's white shirt beach pictures-fun to help someone preserve their happy beach memories! More beach walking and finishing our drinks-I got a bit of a buzz of my coladas!

Hubs decided pizza sounded good to him so we gave The Pickle Factory a whirl-we've heard good reports on it. We get a table and up walks our waitress Savannah from Stinky's and she recognizes us and then I laugh and tell her that I was just thinking she looked like Savannah from Stinky's!

She is friends with folks that work there and was moonlighting a bit. Hubs had a few amberbock drafts, tea for me! We shared the moon pie-fresh in house made focacia bread with pesto-yummy and then hubs selected to play it safe with a pepperoni pizza, cracker thin crisp crust and good flavor to the sauce, not too heavy on cheese so crust stayed crispy-yummo!

Two thumbs up from these pizza fans! Again, great and friendly service from Savannah-we laughed and told her we'd be looking for her at each restaurant we hit this week! Since we had a late dinner, Hwy 30A was pretty much shut down after dinner; ran through Publix for ice cream and back to the townhouse.

We each had a couple of bites of Ben and Jerry Red Velvet Cake ice cream-looks like strawberry but really tastes just like Red Velvet cake! Now you see why my gym membership is imperative! I told hubs that I can't eat like this for two weeks! Chilling and watching a little Empire Strikes Back on Spike TV right now-gnight boys and girls!

 

[BeachbumAggie]

Sunday, up at 7:30 am and off to Grayton Fitness-clearly needing a workout after all of the food we've been eating! On to the beach for a few hours of sun, waves, walking on the beach, meeting nice people, relaxed, finished a book-ahhhh, happiness!!

Back to our townhouse for lunch-fresh Publix baguette with peppered ham and havarti from the deli and some light ranch dip-made it yesterday, this is a total family beach tradition for us!! Took a nap-don't you love vacation naps?! Hubs and I took in a little pool time and met a nice family with a darling little girl with the cutest little dimples and we're looking forward to hanging out with them this week, already planning cocktails and recipe trading-I love meeting new people!

Got dressed and had dinner plans of The Red Bar until we saw there was no parking and a million people outside so on to Nick's on the Beach. Started with a shared bowl of gumbo-tasty but needed a bit of salt and we like it a bit spicier but we agreed that we'd eat it again. We got a fried shrimp dinner-since that's what they're famous for and we also got a bacon wrapped fried shrimp because how can that not be great!

Indeed regular friend shrimp and bacon wrapped fried shrimp were great, very nice very large, perfect amount of breading and cooked just right-yummy!!! Got a piece of carrot cake to go and we just knocked it out-two enthusiastic thumbs up for that as well! Our service was friendly but spread a little thin at Nick's. Swung back by Red Bar to check out the last set of Dread Clampitt-fabulous as always, visited with some friendly locals, looking forward to returning tomorrow evening for dinner and more music from Dread Clampitt.

The mandolin player looks like a younger version of my Dad so I had to get a picture with him! That's it for today, just relaxing a bit and then crashing so I can do it again tomorrow!

 

[BeachbumAggie]

Up and back to the gym-again, too much good food, met a really nice lady from Memphis and enjoyed a visit with her while we crossramped!

Back to townhouse and hubs was awake so we decided to bike down to the Meltdown on 30A for brunch-I know, kills the workout!! I got a croque monsieur-today's special, hubs got brie and bacon. The folks in this airstream trailer make a perfectly cooked grill cheese, fantastic gooey on the inside and a nice little crispy outside-awwww, buttery goodness!

Hubs and I walked the shops of Seaside, I bought a darling beach hat in a shop at Ruskin Place and did some serious eyeballing of some pearl jewelry-I need to add to my collection! Biked back and hit the beach for a while and strolled and played in the very large waves for a bit-water was more clear and less green today which was nice but the waves were beating us up a bit!

Back to townhouse to snack and nap-again I love the vacation nap! Dressed and off to the Red Bar where we promptly snagged a sofa seat to enjoy more Dread Clampitt-they remembered us from last night and played my favorite song of theirs, a cover of The Band's Cripple Creek-fabulous band, fabulous song, love them!!

We were seated in the bar area and hubs had the shrimp and crawfish pasta, I had the panne' chicken; both were tasty and even with his help I could only finish half of mine so he's got a chicken breast for a sandwich for lunch tomorrow!! The night feels great so we walked around a bit and then headed back to rest up. Another great day!

 

[Kurt]

Sounds like a perfect vacation so far!

 

[shakennotstirred]

Thanks for the live trip report. Keep them coming! I'm glad you are having a good time!

 

[ktschris]

Wow!!! I love your trip reports!!! Keep them coming...I can't wait to hear what you do today. On a side note, you have made me very hungry!!!

 

[CPort]

love reading this, i really need to recap my week in sowal,

 

[BeachbumAggie]

It was another lovely sunny day at the beach! Up and to Grayton Fitness for a body mechanics class with Shea-a version of pilates/yoga and such, there were only 5 of us and I don't do this type of class at home but Shea really walked us through it and I enjoyed my workout. Back to the townhouse where I decided to fix bfast, half eggs and half whites with a 100 calorie bagel and light and fit yogurt-I just left the gym so I'm still feeling health kicky! I promptly set off fire alarm by getting pan too hot-using a new stove can be a challenge-woke hubs up from a dead sleep thinking I'm burning the place down!!
On to the beach, water has cleared up more but remains a bit rough, I set up my chair and umbrella and chilled, took a stroll on the beach then chilled some more-ahhhhhh, relaxation!
Back to townhouse to cool off and rest up, we had a key lime pie delivered by the lovely and talented Kat (of the former restaurant D&K Cafe) then off to dinner at Stinky's Fish Camp, we only waited about 20 minutes for dinner where we started with bean butter and crackers-yum #1 then on to their lovely macncheese-yum #2! I had the taste of Stinky's yum #3 which included a small crawfish pie, a piece of catfish, a crabcake, stir fry julienne veggies, brabant potatoes, cheese grits-omg this was good stuff, sadly I couldn't finish and had to share with hubs but he was kind enough to share some of his smokey short ribs with me.....so tender, smokey and delicious with cheese grits and lovely green beans-which he didn't eat but they were very pretty! We left Stinky's with very full tummies!

 

[Miss Kitty]

I am digging this trip report! I have two Aggies staying at the Kitty Kondo this week....my sister and her husband! Gig 'em!