PCB 2009 - Birthday Trip

We left very early from Houston, PCB bound!!! My brother, sister and significant others were on our way to spend a few fun,relaxing days in Panama City Beach and celebrate my 30th birthday.  We had planned this trip about 6 months earlier and everybody though I was crazy for planning a trip to Florida right in the middle of hurricane season.  I just had to hope for the best.  The tropics were very quiet until a few days before my trip.  All of a sudden there was Ana, Bill & Claudette and all possibly headed right to Panama City Beach, Florida!  I was not about to cancel my trip.  Ana did go through PCB but no signs of Ana by the time we got there, Bill took a turn North and Claudette disappeared before reaching PCB.  WOW! This caused for a very uncrowded vacation!

My husband is a history channel geek and all he talked about was driving the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, the longest bridge over water in the world.  It added about 30 minutes to our trip but he couldn't miss this since we hardly ever travel on land.  So we did it and it was everything he expected and more... lol! 

We finally got to the Tidewater Resort that evening, about 7 pm.  We parked in a garage across the street and walked over the walkway to our room.  It was beautiful!  This place was amazing and the view breathtaking!  I cannot talk enough about how much we enjoyed this place.  It usually never looks like the pictures online but this place was BETTER!

After the long road trip, we were tired and just stayed in and explored the condo.  Then we relaxed on the balcony until late.  Ready to explore PCB the next day.

We were awakened by the sunrise visable through our bedroom windows and door.  After a fast breakfast, we had to go  downstairs and check out the beach.  We had a card that allowed us two free beach chairs and umbrellas on the beach so we left our stuff there and jumped in.  After a while we moved over to the pool.  It was never croweded at all.  That could have been due to the warning of 3 storms/hurricanes headed that way that exact weekend that we had planned our trip.

That evening we decided to check out Pineapply Willy's which I had heard was a great place for dinner.  We got to eat on the beach, in the open so dinner was great with the ocean breeze.  I had the famour Ribs and they were awesome.  The drinks were also good. 

We had planned to rent a boat and visit Shell Island today but it rained the majority of day.  We took a trip to St Andrew's State Park while we decided if we still wanted to go to Shell Island.  There was the neatest gift shop there.  We decided the trip wouldn't be worth doing in the rain so we drove around the park and went back to the condo. 

We just hung out in the condo the majority of the day, watched it rain and took naps..  Later in the evening, the rain stopped and we went down to the beach and pool for a swim and then came back up and got ready for dinner at Hooters.  Also go to eat outside with the ocean breeze.  That was probably my favorite thing about the trip, everywhere you eat on the beach, it is outside in  the fresh air.  You could NEVER do that in Houston, at least not comfortably..

The rain kepts us from doing much but we got some deserved relaxation.  We were determined to get to Shell Island so we were hoping for better weather tommorow.

The main thing that I wanted to do on our trip was to rent a boat and visit Shell Island for some snorkeling.  We woke up to very nice weather today so we had a quick breakfast @ McDonalds, conveniently located across the street from our condo.  Then we went down the road to rent some snorkel gear and then rented our boat.  They gave us the key and we were off to Shell Island.  Tropical Storm Ana definately stirred things up there but it was still pretty.  Found a lot of neat shells, did some snorkeling.  We brought some sandwiches and drinks so we had a nice lunch on the boat and then headed back.  We saw several dolphins on the way back which was neat!

For our last night there we decided to go have dinner at Schooners.  We arrived about 7 and waited only a few minutes for a table which was pretty good for a group of 7.  Again, we ate dinner outside, listened to a live band and saw the shooting of the cannon at sunset.  The food was awesome!

Then back to the condo to pack up :'(

Pretty uneventful!