Petersontravels

We drove about two hours east from Pensacola Beach to our next stop, Rosemary Beach.  Along the way we briefly stopped in the VERY crowded town of Seaside, a community that has gained fame as it was the home of the movie “The Truman Show”.  We first stopped in the main square, where apparently many scenes of the movie were shot.  We saw this movie a LONG time ago, so we don’t recall the scenes of this town.

Hopefully we can check it out again and this square will be obvious.

One more look at the square to hopefully jog our memory when we watch the movie again.

The cute Post Office for the little town of Seaside, FL.

We then cruised by the home used in the movie.  Please note the actual address of the home is 31 Natchez Street, but because of tourists they have tried to hide the location by changing the address to 36 Natchez Street.  The exterior is quite unique though, so don’t fall for the ruse.

We then made our way to our accommodation in Rosemary Beach, the nicest place we will stay on this trip, “The Pearl Hotel”.  This place isn’t cheap, but I have to say the service was absolutely 5-star quality!  The hotel itself is gorgeous!  Our room was on the third floor, far right in the below photo.

This is another view of the hotel, which is supposed to have a Cuban influence.  Not sure I see Cuban, but then I guess I don’t know Cuban??

We spent about a half hour on the beach as the weather was excellent!

The hotel provides for chairs, umbrellas, water and sunscreen, so you really don’t need to bring much of anything!

We had an excellent sunset that night!  I only wish we had been on the beach for it, but we had to get to dinner shortly.

We had dinner that first night at the Havana Beach Bar and Grill (see, more Cuban influence) and earlier that day we discovered an excellent wine store that had our favorite Pinot Noir, Domaine Della Earl Stephens!  The restaurant normally charges a $25 corkage, but waived it since we were guests.  Winning!

The next morning this was the view from our balcony.  What a beautiful spot!

Rosemary Beach was a planned community from 1995, so it’s all quite new.  They have attempted to mimic a European style right down to the cobble stone streets, and it looks pretty cool!

We spent a couple of hours on the beach, as there really isn’t a whole lot to do here besides the beach.  Usually not our thing, but we enjoyed some time doing absolutely nothing.  Retirement has it’s challenges!

Kim even decided to get into the water!  I think a wave overtook her here.

After getting back to the room we noted several wedding parties taking photos out on the lawn across from the hotel..  This was a Saturday and there were at least 4 weddings happening in town.  Also, this town is well known as THE spot in Florida for Bachelorette parties.  There were groups of loud, drunk women all over the place, almost like Vegas!

There was even a wedding happening in the hotel, in the rooftop bar right below our room.  I’m doing my best to refrain from commenting on the wedding dress, but I’m suddenly thirsty for milk.

Another nice sunset that night!

The middle of town is all lit up, with thousands of lights on the trees.  Pretty nice!

Our second dinner in Rosemary Beach was at Gallion’s, an excellent restaurant just 4 minutes walk from our hotel.  Great food and a nice wine list, which is associated with the wine store I mentioned previously.

Up next, we drive to Apalachicola, and finally make it to the Eastern Time Zone!

Our first stop in Florida was Pensacola Beach, just across the bay from Pensacola.  There is a $1 toll to cross the bridge.  Almost seems silly to charge a single dollar.  If you are renting a car be aware that some rental companies (like Hertz) will charge you as much as $30 just to process your toll.  Fortunately my former boss John added us to his Florida toll account so we don’t have to worry about Hertz screwing us with fees, but now I owe John $2 ( went across the bridge twice).

After checking in we made our way down the beach to Drift restaurant, where we opted for some pre-dinner cocktails.  William and Myra are changing out drinking habits!

The view from Drift is excellent!  The food was great as well.  Nice spot right at the base of Pensacola Beach Pier.  Odd that they actually want to charge you a few bucks to walk out onto the pier??  We’ve not seen that before, and why is it more expensive than the huge bridge we just crossed??

The sky was beautiful as we walked back to our hotel.

This heron was posing in the surf.

We stayed at the Pensacola Beach Resort, which is a nice place positioned perfectly on the island, within easy walking distance to plenty of restaurants.

Here is the view of the beach from our balcony.  Gorgeous, and we actually had some minor surf due to Hurricane Melissa!  There was zero surf the day prior.

On our first morning we had an early lunch at Paridise Beach Bar and Grill, which sits right on the inner bay.  It’s easy to miss as it sits in the parking lot of an old motel.  I had to try the local beer, Rip Tide Amber Ale.  Pretty good!

We then drove east along the beach to Gulf Islands National Seashore, with some absolutely pristine (and nearly empty) beaches.

Look at those selfie skills!

A view from the small dunes along the beach.  Beautiful spot, and we could not have asked for better weather.  We had always thought Florida was going to be humid, but not at this time of year, at least not on the panhandle.  We are loving how nice it is!

We still had free time that afternoon, so we headed back across the bay to the city of Gulf Breeze and did a short hike along the “Shoreline Park Nature Trail”.  It meanders through a forest, and meets up with a boardwalk over marshlands.

Stunning scenery!  The background is nice too!

This plant was everywhere!  This is the American Beautyberry, and it was out in force!  The roots, leaves and branches were used by Native Americans to treat malarial fevers and rheumatism.  In the early 20th century farmers started rubbing crushed leaves on themselves to repel mosquitoes.  As soon as I read about that Kim rubbed numerous leaves all over herself!

Every beach community seems to have one of these beach balls with the name of the city.  Pensacola is the home of the Blue Angels, and while we saw several jets flying around, it seems the Angels have been likely been grounded by the Schumer Shutdown.  Still a beautiful beach to visit!

Coming up next, we head to Rosemary Beach, another gorgeous spot along the Florida panhandle.