From the Gulf Coast to the Atlantic

We've just taken down the bulk of our "stuff" and packed the car in readiness for an early launch tomorrow morning. It's a long trip from Destin to Jupiter -- about 10 hours plus another hour since we move from Central to Eastern time.
We have been privileged to stay in Tom's beautiful condo here in Destin. We are right on the beach on the 14th floor. We can look out from the lanai and see the sparkling white sand stretch for miles both ways. The wind was down today, and instead of grey crashing surf, we saw more gentle waves with the most amazing shades of green from shore out into the gulf. Near the shore, the water was a very light green; further out it became more of an emerald colour with dark green swooshes here and there. Bright blue and green rented umbrellas are lined up all along the shore. Each condo has its own part of the beach which is accessed only by residents and their guests. A wooden sidewalk skirts the hot tub and the pool before leading down to the beach. On the way back from the beach, there are little foot showers and a hose next to a bench. It makes getting the sand off just a bit easier, although, try as we might, we keep finding sand in our shoes and between our toes! It's a wonderful way to have a holiday.

When not on the beach or sitting on the lanai, we have visited all the cheap souvenir/bathing suit shops around here. We think we' ve been to them all -- Alvin's Islands, SunSational, Waves etc. etc. I found a bathing suit at the shopping center (NOT at the so-called 75% off come-on sales in the souvenir shops) and finally found a bathing suit cover-up at our last-ditch attempt today (too late to use here!) Mary Ann went back and bought the shoes she had tried on a couple of days ago, and, finding nothing better after an exhaustive search, decided the originals were the best. We've laughed at ourselves being so picky and so "touristy".

We had lunch at Panera -- a bakery-type restaurant -- delicious salad with great baguette bread. We had supper tonight at a less than perfect place, but went over to Panera and got dessert to bring home here to have with coffee. Since they open at 6:00 am tomorrow, we plan to pick up some muffins for breakfast and coffee break on the road.

My back is much better, so a little ibuprofen here and there is all I need to operate at near normal speed. Mary Ann has had to do suitcase lifting when we packed the car, but she's tough, so that worked out okay as well.

We hate to leave this beautiful spot, but we are so looking forward to seeing Sandra and Tom in Jupiter, that it makes it good to go.

We were just remarking that today was my mom's birthday. She would have been 109 years old today.

We're glad we weren't along the Outer Banks today. Hurricane Earl has sent people scurrying for safer grounds so we would have been in that evacuation crowd. I think they are expecting some surges down near Jupiter, but not the damaging winds further north.