Attendees: Jack & Lisa
General:
We took this trip to get away; to escape our everyday life if only for a few days. It was as much an escape as it was a celebration of Valentine's Day and our Anniversary (4 Years Aug 2009).
2/11/09
We left home and traveled down. It was an uneventful trip with only a few spurts of conversation here and their. We arrived at the Crown Plaza around 1 am. The hotel was exceptionally nice, but expensive $145 a night. When booking it I expected a view; we found it to be between 2 interstates w/ a brief glimpse of the bay. The bed however was heaven; like laying in a cloud... OMG it felt so good after the long drive. We slept like a dream; well except for the trains that came thru on multiple occasions. Apparently part of the hotel used to be an old train depot and trains still run. A tidbit I did not notice when booking the room.
2/12/09
We woke up after a fairly decent night sleep and laid around a bit. I got a nice hot bath while Jack surfed the net and generally relaxed. We looked at other hotels in the area and decided to move to the Ramada which was only $70 a night and also did not have a view. So we packed up and check out. Good bye luxury. We ate breakfast at the Waffle House where everyone was really nice and seemed to know each other. Then we headed out to explore.
We drove a bit and got a sense of the place and then we stopped at the Visitors Center. It was right on the water with a trail for bird watching. Several pelicans were hanging out and we enjoyed watching them dive bomb for food. The day could not have been prettier with it's blue skies! We then drove down to the Pensacola beach and the National Seashore. The sand was so white it looked like snow. We saw crabs of various sizes in the wild, fishes jumping out of the water to grab the insects on tip and of course birds. There was one stork in particular that was enjoying standing and looking out over the water. We laid on the sand beach on the bay side (the ocean side was within walking distance and we did walk it a bit as well) and enjoyed the sun on our face and the quietly lapping water hitting the shore. I almost fell asleep it was so peaceful. We then ate lunch at Hemingway's. A very nice restaurant with a great view. It was expensive but luckily they had a lunch menu; Jack had ribs which were apparently good and and I had shrimp Alfredo dish that was great! We then shared a key lime pie; me not a big fan of key lime pie but Jack seemed to think it was heavenly.
We then took the scenic drive up to the Ramada Hotel and checked in. It certainly isn't the luxury of the Crown, but the room seemed clean and he staff were only semi incompetent. We checked in and I took a much needed nap. Well 1/2 of a nap - couldn't really get to sleep. Jack watched tv and surfed the net. We then decided to go grab some dinner to end our day. We decided to go to Flounders, but on our way out the door Jack checked and email from work that caused a little bit of stress; well alot. So the real world invaded our cocoon and the evening seemed to have a shadow on it for the rest of it....
On the way out to dinner we stopped at a park that has a board walk down to the beach. It was dusky and generally a relaxing walk... or would have been otherwise. We then drove to Flounders for dinner... The food was ok, the service ok - the food expensive. We spent roughly $50 and I didn't eat 2/3 of my plate; it just wasn't that great... Live and learn. We then came back to the hotel and called it a good day!
2/13/09 - Will update this later as I've got to get ready for my V-Day Dinner; Here comes Sexy Lisa :) HEE
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