The sun, the sand, and a whole lot of good times

--This will be a long blog…be prepared—
Last Thursday afternoon, KW and I were chompin’ at the bits. In fact, Krystle barreled herself at my car as I drove up to pick her up. To say we were ready to get out of Chiefland and Trenton for the weekend would be an understatement.
Blue Bessie (my car) seemed to drive herself up to the panhandle. “She” knows the way very well. Since 2007, I have been going up there at least 3 times a year. Carrabelle has become one of my favorite places to visit. It’s slow pace, it has beautiful beaches, and you couldn’t find sweeter more interesting people. If any of you that read my blog haven’t been through that area, you’re really missing out.
Anyways, as I may have previously mentioned, KW and I had been set to go in March but plans changed. So, we’d decided to push it off until the end of April. The Riverfront Festival was going to be that weekend, so it worked out nicely.
Before we left, I sent KW the Rules for the weekend. I will give y’all a shortened version.

Rules for girl’s weekend

1. This weekend will be full of laughing, having fun, walking on the beach, exploring the towns, shopping, and eating plenty of good food (God help my waistline…bring on the moo-moos!)
2. We will take time to relax and possibly sleep late, if there are no waterfalls behind our wall at 7 a.m.
3. We won’t think about the future (i.e. work, moving, college, etc)…we’ll just live in the here and now this weekend.
4. I will not lose my underwear at the inn…again.

The 2 a.m. rules

1. There will be no butt dialing our mom’s at 2 a.m.
2. There will be no swimming in our underwear…again.
3. And there will be no texting guys to ask them to come and cuddle (shameful, plum shameful).
But other than that…have a great time! (props to whoever caught that this line was from “The Shag” movie)
**rules are subject to change**

The Franklin Inn, where we always stay

So, we drove into town on Thursday night. I came awful close to crawling out of my car and kissing the ground once we got there. Three full days of fun. When we got into our room, we found that the visitor before us had went fishing and put his catches of the day in our refrigerator,…the fish weren’t there, but their odor remained. Quite a stinky find at 8 p.m., I can tell you.
Our first night there, we just drove around town and visited the beach. The next day, we ran around and met with some of our friends in town before trucking off to Port St. Joe. It was really nice seeing everyone. Now, we’d never been to Port St. Joe, so we wanted to do some exploring. We ate at this little place, Joe Mama’s pizza.

The name is funny, but doesn’t do the place justice. The pizza was delicious! If ever you are in the area, try it, you will definitely enjoy it. KW and I had decided that we were going to try to eat at different places this weekend. And I vowed to myself to blog about them and try to drum up some business for them, if ever any of my blog followers should be in the area. All the places that we did eat at (which I will mention them below) were great…but I would like to put here that I was a bit nauseous all weekend…not due to the food, maybe it was because of all of the riding.
After lunch, we went into all the little stores and shopped around. Port St. Joe is a neat little town worth visiting.

Then we went back to Carrabelle and walked on the beach, before meeting my friend Nina for dinner. We ate at Marker 30. I don’t have a picture of this place, but the food was good….well, truth be known, I could only stomach a grilled cheese at that point, so maybe I’m not the one you should ask. BUT we did find out where to pay at. After making ourselves look a bit dumb, we found that you actually step into the kitchen area to pay. Who’d have thunk it?

The Riverfront Festival's sand sculpture

On Saturday, we went to the Riverfront festival early that morning, then, we rode around Apalachicola and St. George Island. Both towns are beautiful. We ate lunch at Tamara’s Café in Apalach. Then, that night we had dinner at “Chef Eddie’s Magnolia Café.”

I, the foodie that I’m becoming, would like to talk about this for a minute. The food was EXCELLENT. The salad was really good, with Chef Eddie’s special dressing. I had the pork loin with raspberry sauce drizzled over it. To. Die. For. Krystle had the chicken picatta with shrimp. There was so much food on the plate. To be honest, I don’t think I even touched the side dish…I couldn’t get over the meat. It was wonderful. I would like to say here that even though I LOVE Carrabelle, love the beach, and love everything about the area, I do not eat seafood…in any form. I’ve tried to eat shrimp before, and I wound up spitting it out after it bobbled down my throat. I just can’t stomach it. Lol. Go figure. BUT, I have heard that the seafood dishes at many of the places in Carrabelle, St. George Island, and Apalachicola are wonderful. Saturday night, we decided to go to Willie’s and listen to the band. I really enjoyed them. I believe the band’s name was “One of Many.” We met a couple of new people that were a blast to hang out with. I would just like to know though…how many people are named Michael/Mike in the town of Carrabelle? Lol. Something to ponder…

Sunday morning, we woke up far too early…again. We drove over to Apalach to take some more pictures (which will follow). We ate at Carolines and had the best pancakes ever (this may be due to the fact that this was the first meal that I had where I didn’t get nauseous directly after). Who would’ve thought to put white chocolate chips on them? Yummm…

I love taking pictures of the beautiful churches in Apalachicola.

And the boats

The St. George Island Lighthouse

It was hard to leave Carrabelle. Every time I leave, it makes me depressed for a few days. I always miss the people that we meet, the beautiful atmosphere, and the carefree attitudes that we have while we’re there. When we came home we had some big decisions to make, so that carefree attitude had to end…
But we did have a blast. And we ARE going back, as soon as we can :)

To finish this off…I better put the things I learned this weekend:

1. Not every jiffy store carries ginger ale. However, I have mapped out every one that does.
2. Some people believe themselves to be the next big philosopher after they’ve been drinking for a little while.
3. Apparently, according to a new friend, Acid is the only drug that’s not detectable by a drug test (wish you could’ve seen my face when she told me this). :)
4. The cleaning lady/front desk lady at the Franklin Inn is so sweet. And she needs a raise for having to clean out our nasty refrigerator.
5. Never to let KW “help” me measure the hem for her dress :) hooch :-P Love ya!..speaking of dresses…
6. Pillowcase dresses + wind= problem.
7. When you go into a restaurant, and don’t find anything that you want to eat, it’s fine to just walk out…lol