The Big 2-5...Kate's Birthday!

St. Andrews State Park. Omar & I ate a picnic lunch and swam in the water.
Still part of the park. The park was mainly just waterfront. There was a little hike (more like a stroll) through some palms around this lake (called Alligator Lake) - we figured their were no gators since the path takes you right to the water.
Saturday night sunset.
Omar and I enjoying the outdoors, while we waited close to 2 hours to get seated for dinner.
This was the outdoors area where we ate dinner. It was a restaurant called "Pineapple Willy's". We had looked online to all sorts of places and this one supposedly had really good bbq ribs. We were driving around town and the lots were completely full. We were going to go back to get seafood somewhere else when a front row spot came available. We figured it was fate.
We invited 3, 19 year old college students to eat with us so they wouldn't have to wait for 2 more hours. Our table was huge! It was quite entertaining. They took our picture and they told the waiter it was my birthday. This was my ice cream treat.
Omar and I on the water taxi to Shell Island. It is part of St. Andrews State Park. We kayaked around part of the 7 mile island, ate lunch, and snorkeled. My legs got barbecued out on the open water. We were going to kayak the whole island from the Bay side to the Gulf side and around, until this old man scared me when we were probably 1/2 done tell us that we would become a "Coast Guard statistic" if we went on the gulf side because there were many boats that would run over a small kayak and there are tons of hammerhead sharks that come up to his fishing boat. Needless to say, we turned around.
This is a sand bar...there were plenty of party places around the island. Supposedly it is very good for shelling (collecting shells) we didn't really experience that...maybe it was because we got exhausted from the sun all day.


So we decided to go on an adventure for my birthday (July 20)! We both had never been to Panama City Beach Florida. It was a 4 hour drive one way. I worked in the car on the way there and back (The Miracle of Internet Air Cards). Good Ol' Omar did most of the driving (I drove maybe 1 hour). We stayed at a Hampton Inn at a fantastic rate for that area. Hotels there (even cheap ones), not even on the beach, are over $100/night. We payed $40/night (gracias suegros). We spent the 1st day at St. Andrews Park. Boy were we shocked when we went out to the water. It was purely disgusting. This was supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in Florida. We were shocked when all we could smell was sewage. When you walked up to the water you just saw this brown muck washing up onto the shore from the waves. It was seaweed. It was hilarious watching people walk up to the water and look in wondering if they could brave the first few feet before getting to the crystal clear water. We ate at a Restaurant and enjoyed our night as well. The next morning we woke up early and took our water taxi to Shell Island and rented Kayaks there. We were able to see jellyfish (not so exciting), lots of little fishes, crabs, and 2 white-spotted eagle rays (some of my favorites!). We had a great time and I got fried (Omar got tanner). The sun killed me and we basically slept most of the evening. We went and bought shrimp to take home with us and left early the next morning for home. It was a fantastic birthday! I am a 1/4 century old now.