{"id":3027,"date":"2014-11-07T19:00:31","date_gmt":"2014-11-08T02:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/?p=3027"},"modified":"2014-11-09T08:21:55","modified_gmt":"2014-11-09T15:21:55","slug":"trip-report-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/trip-report-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Trip report #3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wednesday morning we left Foley, Alabama and headed to Gulf Shores. Pam wanted to find the Post Office and mail a few postcards from Gulf Shores (she liked the postmark). A sign off the main road pointed us in the right direction and we found the PO without any problem and mailed the\u00a0cards.<\/p>\n

This was going to be another “driving” day as we entered\u00a0the Florida panhandle and worked our way south to\u00a0St. George Island. St. George\u00a0was recommended to us as\u00a0having a good place to stay on the beach, the Buccaneer Hotel. On the way we stopped at Ft. Walton Beach, another high point of the trip along the Florida panhandle. Ft. Walton\u00a0became our most favorite panhandle beach stop, having a gorgeous beach, a near-by restaurant, and a few shops. Here are the\u00a0photos:<\/p>\n

\"Pam<\/a>

Pam on Ft. Walton Beach<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Great<\/a>

Great expanse of white sand beach and ocean was delightful to see<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Jerry<\/a>

Jerry with his camera gear<\/p><\/div>\n

After quite some time spent walking, eating, and observing the beach scene we reluctantly left and began heading toward our evening destination, St. George Island. One thing we had not factored in\u00a0was the slower speed limit along the coastal highway(s).\u00a0 Much of the Florida panhandle\u00a0is\u00a0posted at 25 mph, and rarely did the limit get up to 55. This caused us to under-estimate the amount of time it takes to get anywhere. After a day of driving, which included crossing many bridges, we realized we would not get to St. George Island in daylight. To make matters more interesting we passed into the Eastern Time Zone and lost an hour of daylight\/time. We crossed the long bridge over to the island in the dark, found the hotel and got a room, then picked up a couple of sandwiches for dinner.<\/p>\n

\"Buccaneer<\/a>

Buccaneer Hotel is right on the beach<\/p><\/div>\n

In the morning we\u00a0located\u00a0a local grocery store and got stuff to have breakfast on the beach. (Wow, the island grocery prices were amazingly high.) \u00a0We drove up to the east\u00a0end of the island and entered the state park there. Finding a parking spot we took our food and spread out on a picnic table where we could watch the beach activity. After eating we did some beach walking, keeping on our shoes and light coats as the morning breeze was cool. This stretch of\u00a0 the beach was more interesting than some\u00a0— instead of just sand and water there were\u00a0grasses, sea shells, sand dunes, and birds we hadn’t seen before.<\/p>\n

\"Breakfast<\/a>

Breakfast on St. George Island<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Pam's<\/a>

Pam’s favorite beach shot from\u00a0St. George Island<\/p><\/div>\n

Thursday morning\u00a0was off to a great start —\u00a0we spent some time walking both the gulf\u00a0side and bay\u00a0side of St. George Island before we had to get going toward Orlando. Note: The bay\u00a0side has more trees and grassland marshes making for a very interesting ecosystem. We were surprised at how a few hundred yards over the top of the island could make such a big difference on each side.<\/p>\n

We had stopped at a few other beaches but one can take only so many beach pictures. (A few more will be\u00a0displayed in the Key West post.)\u00a0I had to get in a photo of the little Sandpipers that feed at the beaches as\u00a0I like to watch their antics.<\/p>\n

\"Sandpipers<\/a>

Sandpipers are fun to watch<\/p><\/div>\n

Next time: Mary and Jeff plus Epcot Center.<\/p>\n

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!<\/p>\n

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:<\/p>\n

The beaches of the Florida panhandle. \u00a0Nice. \u00a0Just about perfect in October. \u00a0I miss the beach.<\/p>\n

Happy Trails.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday morning we left Foley, Alabama and headed to Gulf Shores. Pam wanted to find the Post Office and mail a few postcards from Gulf Shores (she liked the postmark). A sign off the main road pointed us in the right direction and we found the PO without any problem and mailed the\u00a0cards. This was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3027"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3084,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3027\/revisions\/3084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}