Thunder Beach

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Three weekends ago, Michael's parents took us to Panama City in celebration of Michael's birthday. We stayed in a wonderful place right on the beach!
Little did we know when we picked the weekend, that it was Thunder Beach Weekend!

And here is where the blog is going to totally fail you. I took pictures of the beautiful beach, with its sugar-white sand that was so soft to walk in, and "squeaky" when you scuff your feet. I took pictures of the cute wee sandpipers frolicking in the waves... ...Michael even got great closeups of them... ...we got a blurry picture of the pool, with its Hawaiian shave ice stand (mmm, peaches 'n' cream!) ...I even let pictures of my alabaster legs continue to exist... ...but I did not get any pictures of the bikes. Or the bikers. Not one shot of the custom, skull-incrusted, flame-infused paint jobs nor of the winged helmets, nor still yet any of very overtanned overage women in short shorts.

I had a feeling I'd get beat up if I tried it.

But I think I had the wrong idea about bikers, or at least the kind that show up to ignore helmet laws and cruise around at the beach. I thought they'd be going about 78 miles per hour on the road that runs along the beach, and I thought they'd be lookin' for trouble.

Seeing as how I saw a pink scooter (pink! SCOOTER!) parked, unashamed, in the midst of the mass of hogs outside our hotel, I'm guessing these guys are more in the camp of "if you're an enthusiast, you're OK with us".


But back to the beach...I cannot explain to you how wonderful stepping out on that sand was, even after arriving late at night and finding out that we were not going to be on an upper floor as promised (and paid for), but on the second floor, really close to all the engine noise (read: my anticipated level of engine noise...which was practically non-existent). It was a glorious temperature, the sand felt glorious, and THERE WAS THE OCEAN. A few minutes later and we were all digging in the sand, practically in the dark, to repair someone else's sandcastle that an unfeeling jerk had stomped upon. All was right with the world. And to make up for the room problem, the hotel gave us free breakfast and moved us the next day to a room with a fantastic view.

Saturday morning we hit the beach, swam out to the sandbar and had a great time until we saw the first Moon jelly (dinner plate sized) floating in the water. Uh-oh. Then we saw a second, and a third...and then we decided the hotel pool looked pretty good. After lunch, we headed out to find some miniature golf, but we got distracted by this wonderful maze. This is me at the observation tower at the start. You timepunch a ticket when you enter, and then you have to make your way to the four raised platforms to punch your card. When you exit, you timepunch your ticket again for bragging rights. =) You can see that things look pretty uniform throughout! We beat Michael's parents, but if I had been left to myself I might still be in there. =) After the maze, we were too hot to golf, so we went to the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum (sic). I'd never been to one before. When I was a kid, if I had suggested such a thing, my dad would have said, "We're not wasting money seeing that junk." I have to say, I think he had the right idea! =D

Sunday morning we got up and hit the beach again and Michael had a lot of fun searching for shells. The ones with the holes are, obviously, for attaching to stitched pieces. =) I love the piece of coral he found, and the teensy spiral shells.

On the way out of town, we finally had our game of minigolf. I had one bad hole that put me out of the running, but I still did not end up in last place. =) It was a great weekend and so nice to just see the sun and be warm!!

JiffNotes
Bikers like pink, too.