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Back from Florida
Mar. 13th, 2009 04:49 pmHi all,
I'm baaaaack! Sorry, couldn't resist. I actually got back in town late Monday, but I've been busy all week (among other things the breaks went out on one of the Jeeps while we were driving home from the airport -- and the other Jeep had been in the shop while Mom and I were in Florida).
The trip was great. Mom and Dad said they put a "used mobile home" on their land in Northern Florida (in the Pan-Handle) -- I had visions of trailer trash, I really did. But what they had was a very nice manufactured home - the kind you see split in half and traveling down the freeway. They put in some very nice used furniture and the house actually looked nice. The house is in the middle of nowhere, with the closest realy city being Panama City about an hour, hour and a half away. (My Dad likes quiet, rural retreats. Me -- I'm a city girl, and the town I'm living in is too small for me!).
Mom and I ended-up going to Panama City every day except the night we arrived and the day we left for Tallahassee. In Panama City, we sorta' ended-up doing the gastro-tour. We went to the world-famous seafood place "Captain Anderson's". It was AWESOME. We had this crab appetizer --of little tiny crab fingers soaked in butter, garlic and sea salt (a little salty, but yum!). I had a Greek salad that was really good - right up there with any of the really good Greektown restaurants in Detroit. For dinner, I had crab in puff pastry with an incredible sauce - like an alfredo sauce but with cheese (not just parmesan either, some other cheese like colby was in there). It was very, very good. Mom had shrimp, which she thought was OK, but she thought mine was better. For dessert we brought stuff home. I had a almond mousse cake thing -- with chocolate mousse, yellow cake, raspberry sauce, sitting in a waffle-bowl with almonds, honey, white and dark chocolate. INCREDIBLE! Mom had Key Lime pie. We both also got really good cannolies from the attached Bakery.
Friday we went to a seafood buffet, - it was ok. I was disappointed that almost all the fish was fried.
Saturday we went to another awesome restaurant, the Boar's Head, a seafood/steak place with an English hunting lodge decor. It was very good. Again, I had Greek salad (yum), and a grouper in Bernasie sauce (ok). Mom had prime rib -- and loved it. I had chocolate mousse again for desset -- awesome!
Also, on Saturday we went to a wine tasting at the store for The Panama City Winery -- which makes fruit wine. It was a blast and Om bought six bottles of wine and had them shipped home. Panama City Winery makes wine with Florida citris -- oranges, grapefruit, etc as well as other fruit wines -- blueberry, cranberry, cherry (used to that one in Michigan), etc. And the wines were incredibly good. Mom's already taking about ordering more.
Sunday we drove to Tallahassee, went to a Botantical garden (outside -- beautiful but warm) and got a hotel for the night because we had an early morning flight, or were supposed to. Monday we got up, had a quick breakfast at the hotel, packed and went to the airport. We returned the rental car, checked the bags, cleared security, and were waiting for about an hour before Delta bothered to tell us our flight had been cancelled. THEN the next flight was only an hour/hour and a half late -- but not only would we have missed our connection in Atlanta, we'd have to stay overnight there. Considering I had an allergy attack in the airport on the way down after only being there a couple of hours, neither of us wanted to do that.
So they switched us to Continental - and the flight out of Tallahassee wasn't for 7 hours. We ended-up going to the mall in downtown Tallahassee for awhile, then going back to the airport. We finally got on the flight to Memphis with a connection home. (I found out having a laptop is really cool tho'. I plugged it in, warned passing traffic of the cord, and watched two episodes of *Magnum, PI* on the built-in DVD player while waiting). However, either our plane was late getting into Memphis, or the amount of time for connecting was way, way short, because we ended-up having only 15 minutes to get from one gate to the other -- on the opposite side of a HUGE airport (hey, I'd never been in Memphis before, i was expecting a small to medium-sized airport). Mom was having trouble with her knees, so we flagged a passing wheelchair and airport worker who got us to a central round area -- then they put us on an electric cart. And MAN was that guy going fast! He was blowing his horn, weaving thru' traffic, and going so fast it was like an amusement park ride. But fun! We arrived at the gate with only minutes to spare. Finally got home quite late, and on the way home, Dad's car blew the break line (it smelled, and smoked, and was just genuinely bad).
The rest of this week I've been dealing with two broken cars, getting my schedule for work, etc.
--Olivia
I'm baaaaack! Sorry, couldn't resist. I actually got back in town late Monday, but I've been busy all week (among other things the breaks went out on one of the Jeeps while we were driving home from the airport -- and the other Jeep had been in the shop while Mom and I were in Florida).
The trip was great. Mom and Dad said they put a "used mobile home" on their land in Northern Florida (in the Pan-Handle) -- I had visions of trailer trash, I really did. But what they had was a very nice manufactured home - the kind you see split in half and traveling down the freeway. They put in some very nice used furniture and the house actually looked nice. The house is in the middle of nowhere, with the closest realy city being Panama City about an hour, hour and a half away. (My Dad likes quiet, rural retreats. Me -- I'm a city girl, and the town I'm living in is too small for me!).
Mom and I ended-up going to Panama City every day except the night we arrived and the day we left for Tallahassee. In Panama City, we sorta' ended-up doing the gastro-tour. We went to the world-famous seafood place "Captain Anderson's". It was AWESOME. We had this crab appetizer --of little tiny crab fingers soaked in butter, garlic and sea salt (a little salty, but yum!). I had a Greek salad that was really good - right up there with any of the really good Greektown restaurants in Detroit. For dinner, I had crab in puff pastry with an incredible sauce - like an alfredo sauce but with cheese (not just parmesan either, some other cheese like colby was in there). It was very, very good. Mom had shrimp, which she thought was OK, but she thought mine was better. For dessert we brought stuff home. I had a almond mousse cake thing -- with chocolate mousse, yellow cake, raspberry sauce, sitting in a waffle-bowl with almonds, honey, white and dark chocolate. INCREDIBLE! Mom had Key Lime pie. We both also got really good cannolies from the attached Bakery.
Friday we went to a seafood buffet, - it was ok. I was disappointed that almost all the fish was fried.
Saturday we went to another awesome restaurant, the Boar's Head, a seafood/steak place with an English hunting lodge decor. It was very good. Again, I had Greek salad (yum), and a grouper in Bernasie sauce (ok). Mom had prime rib -- and loved it. I had chocolate mousse again for desset -- awesome!
Also, on Saturday we went to a wine tasting at the store for The Panama City Winery -- which makes fruit wine. It was a blast and Om bought six bottles of wine and had them shipped home. Panama City Winery makes wine with Florida citris -- oranges, grapefruit, etc as well as other fruit wines -- blueberry, cranberry, cherry (used to that one in Michigan), etc. And the wines were incredibly good. Mom's already taking about ordering more.
Sunday we drove to Tallahassee, went to a Botantical garden (outside -- beautiful but warm) and got a hotel for the night because we had an early morning flight, or were supposed to. Monday we got up, had a quick breakfast at the hotel, packed and went to the airport. We returned the rental car, checked the bags, cleared security, and were waiting for about an hour before Delta bothered to tell us our flight had been cancelled. THEN the next flight was only an hour/hour and a half late -- but not only would we have missed our connection in Atlanta, we'd have to stay overnight there. Considering I had an allergy attack in the airport on the way down after only being there a couple of hours, neither of us wanted to do that.
So they switched us to Continental - and the flight out of Tallahassee wasn't for 7 hours. We ended-up going to the mall in downtown Tallahassee for awhile, then going back to the airport. We finally got on the flight to Memphis with a connection home. (I found out having a laptop is really cool tho'. I plugged it in, warned passing traffic of the cord, and watched two episodes of *Magnum, PI* on the built-in DVD player while waiting). However, either our plane was late getting into Memphis, or the amount of time for connecting was way, way short, because we ended-up having only 15 minutes to get from one gate to the other -- on the opposite side of a HUGE airport (hey, I'd never been in Memphis before, i was expecting a small to medium-sized airport). Mom was having trouble with her knees, so we flagged a passing wheelchair and airport worker who got us to a central round area -- then they put us on an electric cart. And MAN was that guy going fast! He was blowing his horn, weaving thru' traffic, and going so fast it was like an amusement park ride. But fun! We arrived at the gate with only minutes to spare. Finally got home quite late, and on the way home, Dad's car blew the break line (it smelled, and smoked, and was just genuinely bad).
The rest of this week I've been dealing with two broken cars, getting my schedule for work, etc.
--Olivia
