Gulf Breeze Faves

Just wanted to share some favorites from our visit here this week...the Flounders Chowderhouse Restaurant--founded by the Flounders brothers--Felix, Fred, and Floyd. Their dad's name was Frank--either this is a bunch of BS or this really is a family with these names. But it's great P.R....the menu is humorous and the food was great! The fish chowder is award winning...the french fries are flash fried...really!

We ate at another restaurant called Peg Leg Pete's Oyster Bar--Eldy had the best oysters he's every had, I just watched him enjoy them, not for me, no siree! But they did have fantastic chowder and grilled shrimp that tasted like it was cooked on a wood fire grill. I don't like fish at all, but I have had fish chowder three times since we've been here, primarily made with grouper, and it is delicious! I could eat it every day! I felt good that we were supporting the local economy by dining out several times, lol...


We loved the houses along the way to the campground...just about all of them are up on "stilts" to help protect against the ever worrisome hurricane wind and storm forces. A lot of the electric boxes or air conditioners are well up mounted on the second floor walls....and the colors! Lavender, turquoise, yellow, peach, aquamarine, even a totally copper orange one! (not pictured) But it was really sad to see how many houses have been forced into the rental business, and many of the houses look relatively new....I'll bet there are some great deals for vacation rentals here.

We love Florida because it's just DIFFERENT! How often do you see an armadillo wandering around your yard (unless you live where they live, of course!) This is Arney, and he's back again, sniffing around for insects, I think! He wasn't too skittish about me following him around with my camera at first, but then he skedaddled when I tried to get a little closer.

We love Florida for the goofiness you see sometimes or the unusual...haven't seen any pink flamingoes in people's yards, but we did see fuzzy antlers on the top of a Volvo station wagon today,  a pink, yellow, and blue grafitti covered bridge, and another interesting house in Gulf Breeze. Something in the air, maybe? Then there is this business pictured at the right down the street from Flounders...not sure what they are selling, but it wasn't open at the moment.

And of course, we love Florida for the weather...although it's going to get about 28 degrees in the panhandle this evening, it's still better than the weather right now in Indiana....We've decided to head further south today, heading towards Naples. We are going to do about 300 miles today and then stop at a Passport America Park for the night. We'll do about 350 miles tomorrow till we get to Naples. We have an idea where we want to stay but we don't have reservations, that might be a problem, but Eldy has faith that we will get something..the snowbirds are starting to fly so we may need to start making reservations (hint, hint, to my better half!).....see you on the road tomorrow.....