Tag Archives: Vacation

Pictures of the Adventure, RV Life, The Adventure

Some Beachy Thoughts

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Sigh.
We’ve returned from our lovely two-week beach respite – and it was just what the doctor ordered. For two weeks we slept as long as we wanted (which means until 5:30 am for Gary and 8 am for me!), lingered over 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles, read books, and sat on the balcony watching brave folks shivering on the beach. It was great! Here are some thoughts and observations from those two sweet weeks –
Architecture
Beach housing is very diverse! Most days we would take our walk along Santa Rosa Blvd, which runs along the Okaloosa Island spit. On the beach side of the road, it’s all about the Condo!
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I’m not averse to those condos – after all, we were staying in one!
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But I was really intrigued by the great variety of single (ish) family dwellings on the other side of the street! There were the fancy ones with fountains and impressive plasterwork –
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There were the tall ones
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and some very short ones.
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There were a couple of creative A-frames –
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a geodome variation
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and then there was this “I wonder what the inspiration was?” house.
Untitled I’m still trying to figure that one out. Any thoughts?
Checking out all of the interesting houses (and thinking about all the interesting people that might live in them!) made our sidewalk jaunts always interesting.
Nature Walks
We tried to get a good walk in every day, and one day – to mix it up a bit – we took our walk on the Turkey Creek Nature Trail over in Niceville.
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It was a lovely mile-long boardwalk along Turkey Creek, which apparently is quite the tubing spot in the summer!
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It was a beautiful way to get in our steps!
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The Beach
We really aren’t “Beach People”. Gary especially is not a fan of sand. What we do love is the ocean, and that makes our beachfront condo rental just perfect. We could watch the ocean (and even dolphins one day!), hear the waves, and enjoy the sea air – but never get our toes sandy! But even though we walked mostly on the sidewalk, we did occasionally hop over to the beach to finish getting our steps in.
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And while it was never warm enough to tempt us to officially get in the water, we did manage to at least get our feet wet (and document it even!).
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Those walks on the beach were always a treasure!
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(Even if we did have jackets and hats on!).
In summary –
From sunrise  the first photo of the day

to sunset –

it was a grand string of laidback, mostly sunshiny days for which we are both very thankful!

Tonight we are back home, mostly unpacked (emphasis on mostly), and getting ready to pull in the slides and bungee down the coffee pot first thing in the morning to begin our drive to our January SOWER project. It’s good to be home – but man, those were some sweet weeks at the beach! If you’d like to see some more photos of our time at the beach you can check them out HERE!

Thanks for stopping by –

 

Beach girl Steph

=)

 

The Adventure

Good Morning, Sunshine!

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It’s so lovely when the first day of vacation starts with bright sunshine (and no alarms, of course!). 
Good morning!
We arrived at our Gulf View condo last night, unloaded the truck (so much stuff!!!!), turned up the heat, and promptly took a nap.
Ft Walton beach day one
But guys – look at that view!! For the next two weeks that will be feeding our souls. We have absolutely no plans (except for a big ol’ Zoom call with the kids on Christmas Day), already have leftover pizza in the fridge (hey, we couldn’t get into the condo until after 2:00), and enough snack foods to ensure that we won’t waste away. I brought my sewing projects, picked up a jigsaw puzzle from the local thrift store (for $1!!), and have several good books that have been waiting to be read. I also packed a warm jacket, my hat and gloves, and walking shoes – so whether it’s on the sand or sidewalk, I’m hoping to get in lots of steps!
So it could be quiet here – or it could be chatty! Who knows? Certainly not me!
Happy Four Days until Christmas, friends! Don’t forget to check out the “Where are we Now” page for more details of our location!
Steph

PS – Here’s the sunset from last night. God is showing off again!
Ft Walton beach day one

Family and Friends, RV Life

Baby it’s cold out there

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It seems like it’s cold just about everywhere! While it did eventually warm up to that balmy 24,  we woke up to no water (even our tank was frozen) and we spent most of the day just trying to stay warm in our insulated tin can of a house. Let’s just say we had so many layers on that it was hard to be productive at anything!  But I’m pretty sure it was cold where you were too!

 

 

While most of you are bustling around getting ready for Christmas, Christmas for us will be pretty quiet. It’ll be just us.  But we’ll be busy, even if it won’t be with traditional Christmas-y things! We’ll be packing up the truck for an early Monday morning (or middle of the night, depending on your perspective) departure for our long-awaited Conrad Family Post-Christmas Holiday! We’re expecting the whole gang (all 20 of us!) to gather in Destin, FL for a week of family fun. We’ve rented a big ol’ house just a couple of blocks from the beach,Untitled but in case it’s a little cool for the beach, the house has its own heated pool and hot tub. Between games and puzzles, the pool and the ocean, and the hundreds of touristy things to do in the Destin area, I’m pretty sure we’ll find enough fun for everyone.
UntitledIt might not be summer beach weather, but at least nothing is below freezing!

So like many of you, we’re making our list and checking it twice – but our list is all about what we don’t want to forget to bring along for the adventure!

Merry Christmas Eve Eve, friends!