The drive on Saturday morning went pretty well until we hit Hwy 98 in Destin. We crawled the last 10 miles to the resort. It took over an hour to go a few miles. Much to my husband's dismay this brought down our average mpg for the trip. Finally, we arrived at the Sandestin Resort - woo hoo!
We were greeted warmly by the staff at Sandestin and surprise – our room was ready early. Normally the check in time is 4PM and there we were at 1PM and our room was ready. Someone above was watching over us. (http://sandestin.com/)
Our one bedroom rental condo was on the 14th floor of the WestWinds tower with a direct view of the beautiful emerald green and blue Gulf of Mexico! I was in awe of the view. I think that my blood pressure immediately dropped 10 points. Even my 18 year old son was impressed with the view, the condo, and facilities.
No time to unpack, just a quick change into a swimsuit and I was headed to the beach! I walked to the water’s edge and again my blood pressure dropped another 10 points! We rented 2 chairs and umbrella at a surprisingly high cost of $39 a day. But hey the rental comes with two free souvenir Sandestin Beach towels. As if we don’t already have enough beach towels! What the heck, we are on vacation so we will splurge on the very nice Sandestin chairs. The chair guy was from Mississippi and was named Destroy. Hmm. Guess there is a story behind that name but not sure I wanted to hear it so I didn't ask.
My husband, Vito, was so good. He carried my beach bag that held my reading material, iPod, camera and flip video camera, water bottles and snacks to the beach. We took a nice walk on the beach scoping out other vacationers and properties along the beach. We love the beach and walking on the beach is one of our favorite things to do besides sitting in a chair with a drink reading our books!
About two years ago, my husband developed some sort of strange sensitivity to the sun. He has to ensure he puts on lots of sunscreen and wears a hat. This is something we all should do anyway but take for granted. So he doesn’t enjoy going to the beach as much as he used to but he says he will do anything to make me happy. He is such a sweetheart.
I stayed on the beach longer than my husband and took in the smell of the beach and the Gulf, listened to the music playing at the pool, and started a new book called Life’s A Beach by Claire Cook. How could I go wrong with a book with that title? Turns out this was a great book that was an easy and interesting read.
On Saturday night we drove over to Sandestin Baytowne Wharf to check out the restaurants and shops. I already narrowed our restaurant search to Graffiti & Funky Blues Shack and Roberto's Pizza. Graffiti’s is an eclectic restaurant with Italian food and entertainment. It appeared to be a really cool place until I checked out the menu and saw that spaghetti was priced at $24. I have an Italian husband and an 18-year old son who both like to eat a lot so I was a little concerned about the prices. Not that we couldn’t afford it. I just have a hard time paying over 5 times what it would cost me to feed us the same meal at home. So we headed over to Roberto's.
There was no wait at Roberto's and we were quickly seated at an outside table. We weathered the heat and humidity and did some great people watching waiting for our delicious pizzas to arrive. The pizza was very good. The wait staff was friendly but not overly attentive. They appeared to be college students and spent more time socializng with each other more than attending to their guests.
After dinner we checked out the stores which had great and even unique merchandise. However, none of the items jumped up and shouted "Buy Me." I was just so happy to be at the beach and I didn't need to buy anything
My son took the free Sandestin shuttle back to the condo. My husband and I stopped at a grocery store fpr some breakfast food, snacks and beverages. I also went to CVS and bought a little beach chair that I could sit in at the edge of the water on Sunday. Then it was back to the condo for some R&R.
1 comment:
It's been quite some time since I've been to Florida. Unfortunately, the last time was all about work and little play. Maybe that's why I haven't been back. : ). Thanks for sharing. Nice blog.
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