Fort Walton Beach Time - Dec 2015

Last week after we got rear-ended, we found out it would take a week before we even got into the body shop for repairs.  There are worse things than being in Fort Walton Beach for a couple of weeks.

One great thing about the area is that our friend Karin lives here.  We let her know we'd be and town and went out to dinner at Lulu's Restaurant (Lulu is Jimmy Buffet's sister)

in Fort Walton Beach one evening.  This is our second time eating there and it was a little disappointing.  This time for some reason, the menu changed and we basically had bar food that was a little on the high side.

But it was great to see Karin again and we scheduled a 'Habitat for Karin'.  Basically, she needed a some more hands to mount a TV brace on a wall on the back porch

and put up a large mirror in the dining room.

 I forgot to take a picture of it after we hung it, but I did get a photo of Karin and Pam supervising while I drilled some holes through the brick for the anchors to the TV brace.

On another day, we went out to the Eglin AFB Golf Course and played 18 holes.

Pam thinks we played here a time or two long ago, but I don't remember it if we did.  I do remember that while we were stationed here in the late 1970's, Eglin was a championship golf course.

We had a lot of fun and it continues to be a very nice golf course.  Like most rounds of golf, there were a few good shots but nothing like days of old...

While here in the FWB area, we found a new fish market.  We stopped one afternoon to get a pound of shrimp and cooked them on the grill.

 Not too flashy and I think this place has been quite a few years.  It is tucked away back from the main road and right on one of the many inlets on Choctawhatchee Bay.  Kind of a 'mom and pop' store.

We cooked out on the grill that night.  The shrimp was good and it was fresh!

One of the sunny afternoons last week, Pam pulled out the sewing machine and set up shop in her outdoor 'sewing room'.

She had a pair of pants that needed to be shortened so she took up hemline.

This area is a special place for us because we met and were married here.  We had some extra time so we drove by our first home and looked around.  Our apartment was on the second story and the second window from the left end.

 It was a pretty nice place back then and they have done a good job of maintaining it for the last 36+ years.  The unit we were in was vacant so I peaked in the windows.

This was the view out of our front door.

Yesterday we dropped the car off at the Miracle Strip Body Shop and got picked up in an Enterprise van to get a car.

We ended up with a nice Chrysler 200.  Since we dropped it off early, we went out to breakfast at Joe and Eddie's which is a popular restaurant in town.

It's not the 33 Dinner (my all time favorite in Maynardville TN), but it's got the basics

Later we drove out to the Army's Fort Benning Rec Area in Destin and checked things out with a little drive through.  It continues to get attention with demo and rehab to one of their guest buildings.  It's one of the nicest military vacation stays in the area.  With suites and dorms and an RV campground on the same property, they use every square inch, but it is still a great spot to stay.  We've stayed there three times.

That's a brief rundown of some of the things we've been doing during our stay in the area.
Thanks for joining us today on the Roadrunner Chronicles!