Ready for some pictures? Panama City Beach, Take Two!

We didn't get enough of Panama City Beach when we were there last time, so we decided to go again. This time we spent three nights and saw a lot more stuff.

The drive down was busy. I guess Labor Day weekend makes everyone want to get to the beach? We started the drive at about 3:30pm, and of course ended up stopping soon into the drive for coffee and drinks and potty. But look at this gas station! Gator Stop, what's that all about?


Alligators, that's what!! Can you see the turtle(s) too? It was pretty awesome.


Birds, too!

Don't worry, we were on the right side of a fence that looked like it would keep the gators in their pond. If you were so inclined, you could go into the gas station and buy a bag of Gator Food (aka marshmallows). We did not do that.

This one came right up on the grass to beg! Or to plot against us?

Back on the road, happy with slushies (I think these were from a different gas station though).

Reese looking a little tired, but don't worry, the sugar from the slushies took care of that.

We arrived at the hotel, Casa Loma as it was getting dark. We dumped our stuff and headed right down to the beach. The last time we visited Panama City Beach, we saw people after dark on the beach with flashlights. After asking the front desk, we discovered that the flashlight people were catching crabs. We vowed to be those flashlight people, and we were.

It was really windy.

Here's one of the many creatures we found on the beach. I expected there to be a few crabs, and that they might be hard to catch. The beach was littered with crabs, and if you were brave like Eric and went into the ocean, the crabs were bigger. Everywhere a light was shined, the crabs would scuttle away.

The next day, after swimming a whole bunch, we headed to one of the public piers. We got lucky in that the fisher people were so busy catching interesting fish. I think this is a Spanish mackeral.

Does this look like a shark? That's because it IS. We saw fisherpeople pull up at least three sharks while we were there, all around a foot and a half long or so. They are sand sharks.

After spending a while on the pier, we headed down to the beach to watch the sunset.

Walking on a pier and watching a sunset made us thirsty. Eric stopped at the Front Porch. Anything this crazy and gaudy must have good slushies. And they did! Stay away from the Long Island Iced teas though, yuck.

After we got back to the hotel, we went crabbing again. There was no way I was staying away from the beach at night.

The next morning, we got caffeinated at a coffee shop called Lagauna Beach Coffee Shop. Two of those are mine. It was a nice coffee shop, complete with kid toys. Eli declared it his favorite, and I think it had more to do with the Little Peoples than the coffee.

More time on the beach. We did some snorkeling, then decided to build a sand castle. It's more of a sand pile, I guess. I specialize in digging trenches, building sand piles, and adding on villages. The beach was awesome, by the way. It didn't get too deep too fast, and we found tons of shells.

Busy playing on the beach!

Eli wanted to play football. We made them wear life jackets in the ocean. Give us the Concerned Parents Award, please.

After we got tired of snorkeling and building in the sand, we played a quick game of Kubb.

It's a good beach game!

Both kids like playing.

After the beach, some resting. Check out that headboard.

I don't know why the bottom half of the pic is dark. Is it dark for you? Anyway, we went crabbing again. We just can't stay away!

Then the fun had to come to an end. We left around 11am on Monday to battle the traffic all the way back to Columbus. It was a really great vacation, and I miss the beach already. It's amazing to me how many creatures there are on a beach, and how big the ocean is. I was able to do some thinking and enjoyed my family. I can't wait to go back!