We weren't technically in a hurry this day but we still got up early and headed to the airport to pick up our rental car by 9:00am as soon as the place opened. We were headed to Panama City beach and since we were only staying a single night we wanted as much time there as we could and it was about a 5 hour drive away. Kerry had booked the taxi the night before which turned out to be a good thing as our taxi driver was apparently also the dispatcher and he had to say no to a ton of cars. They only had minivans in the immediate lot so we got a free upgrade and let Carter pick the colour.
We were on the road by around around 9:30am and we had several states we had to get through including Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. It would probably have been nice to take a few roads closer to the water but we didn't really have a lot of time so we stayed mostly on the I-10. I'm not sure what I was expecting for this area of the US but it felt a lot like other areas we have driven. Major highway with lots of fast food restaurants at the exits as well as Love's gas stations. It was interesting to drive some of the major causeways.
Our hotel was a typical coastal water front hotel. 7 or 8 stories with the balconies facing the ocean and the door on an outside corridor on the front. We had assumed spring break would be finished by now but a lot of the universities have different weeks. This meant a lot of drunk college kids doing everything from beach volley ball to beer pong on the beach. We also noticed that all the furniture in the room was plastic which is probably a good thing when you have to clean up after spring breakers every March. The room itself was great for me as it had separate rooms for each of the beds and a couch for Carter to sleep on.
We had long planned to try out a beach side restaurant near our hotel called Harpoon Harry's but I guess they rent themselves out for special events during spring break so we wandered down the beach headed towards the next bank of hotels. Kerry didn't want drive and risk losing our parking spot as it was very difficult to find. We got about halfway there when Kerry realized she had dropped her room key in the envelope with our room number on it so we had to head back. Amazingly she found it where she had last taken her phone out for pictures. We ended up at a pizza joint across from out hotel where we shared pizza and wings.
While wandering up the beach we found a mini-golf place which only took cash. I assume cash only business tend to be for money laundering but it was still not a bad course. Most of the holes had multiple obstacles and often were mechanized in some way. Mini-golf continues to be Carter's nemesis. There was a hole with a turtle where you have to get it through the middle or it gets spit back out at you and it goes all the way back to the starting point. Carter missed at least a half dozen time and was not happy. Lesson learned for everyone else to lay up on the first shot. I ended up winning the evening by 10 shots. Fun night for me!
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