Driving Day and Panama City

Since Sarasota wasn't an actual stop on our trip list, we left first thing last Tuesday morning and began the 7 1/2 hour drive to Panama City. Panama City was actually just another random stop, too, in-between lower Florida and New Orleans. We spent most of the day in the car and arrived in Panama City around 4pm, but the cross into Central Time actually gave us another hour to enjoy our last day at a beach until California.

We're basically booking all of our hotel rooms last-minute which means we get some pretty good deals, so we booked a cheap oceanfront hotel room on Panama City Beach. This beach is known for being a huge spring break spot, but since we were there on a Tuesday night in May, there were just a few college students around. There was quite a strong breeze, and a cold front had come through, so we didn't get to enjoy it nearly as much as we'd wanted, but it was still nice. We went for a walk along the beach, and Tom and I agreed that this was one of the most beautiful beaches we'd visited so far.  We'd love to come back to the gulf beach area again (but not during the month of March!!).

We went to an oceanfront restaurant called Spinnaker's for dinner in the hopes of catching a good sunset. The location & decor were nice, but we literally had the absolute worst server either of us has ever had... no exaggeration. He even told us he was bad at it right off the bat. I will spare you of all the details, but I have to at least mention his grand finale. We asked for our check about 15 minutes before the sunset so we could walk down to the beach. Tom went ahead down to start taking some pictures while I waited on our check. I sat and sat and sat, and when he finally came back, he didn't pick up on any of the visual cues that we were anxious to go (Tom already gone, me sitting with my arms crossed, credit card in my hand, annoyed look on my face).  Instead, he decided that would be a good time to start asking me a serious of questions about where we were from and what we were doing. It was unreal. By the time I signed our check, the sun was below the horizon. I literally missed it by 30 seconds. Here are some pictures Tom took while I was waiting for our check:

We called it an early night and headed back to our hotel so we'd be ready to go first thing Wednesday morning. The weather was warmer and calmer Wednesday, so we were sad to be leaving since we had great beach access and a pool to boot. We had to get going, though - long day ahead!

Next up: Fairhope, AL, Biloxi & Gulfport, MS, and New Orleans!