time at the Gulf of Mexico

Mom and I headed to Michaels, Jo-Anns, and Target to hope to

find some yarn and came away with a ridiculous amount of stuff for next Christmas and decorating.  Like that’s what either of us need, but the deals were so good and the things so cute, you couldn’t help yourself.  We at least went to

 the dollar store, Target and JoAnns and didn’t buy anything and I only got 7 skeins of yarn in the whole trip….we decided that we had to have some local seafood on this trip and see the gulf since the Bean is so close to a  new body of water.  We have some great pictures of our first dip of toes into the surf and feeling soft sand in between our toes.  John tried to get a picture of a long, thin fish that we could see from 

the seawall, and I don’t know what kind of fish it was, I’m not a nature writer.  Hell, I’m barely a travel writer since I’ve not given you any information about the part of Florida that we are visiting: so I will attempt to do so here.  We went

 for our one meal out on this entire store to The Inn at the Gulf and John had the best mussels he’s had since the Netherlands.   The waitress was a big hit with Oscar who could not take his eyes off of her.  She said that the scampi was good and she was right, it was amazing (how does one go wrong with a ton of butter and some garlic), but that was the sauce on the mussels and it was great to the point 

 that you eat every piece of bread they give you to sop up all the juice.  The fish and chips were not so great because we’re used to fluffy, light Northern fish like cod in our fish and chips and the grouper was very dense, which just seemed heavy and not very good.   The place my parents live is very amenable to a retired lifestyle and John immensely enjoyed golfing.  My 

  parents have great friends, two of which don’t even know us, but brought presents for Oscar.  Previous neighbors who no longer live in Canadian Lakes also visited and gave Oscar more gifts.  But the sight of a huge concrete truck doing sinkhole repair on a house down the street and the stories of others in the neighborhood is distressing.  Also, once you get out of Timber Pines, this part of

  Florida just looks run down.  I know that it is somewhat due to the salt water, because it makes all the paint and metal look old even when it’s new, but it just seems like you’ve walked into a run-down, sad part of town everywhere.  Also, there are people everywhere and we all know that I’m a small town girl now and the traffic lights, traffic, and people everywhere just irritate me.

Mom keeps saying that everything is closer to her here and will use the phrase, “It’s closer than Big Rapids or Mt. Pleasant”, but I have to say that it’s a wash in time because of waiting at all the lights and extra stress of all these people everywhere.  So, there’s the actual travel writing with a review of a restaurant and a few impressions of the area, but nothing substantial.  Sorry about that, but we’re on the road again here soon and offline because John’s 

  great aunt in south Georgia doesn’t even know much about the internet, much less have Wifi….So, it will be a few days until the next post, but I should be able to take the computer in the car, we’re leaving Oscar at Nana and Poppy’s in order to have room…..love to all, jo