Beach Road 98 on a Torrential Fourth of July Weekend
A two and a half hour drive took us six hours. We also stopped for lunch, and we stopped to pick up the Qatari Cat. The rest of the time, we were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic most of the 100 something miles of the drive home; stuck in one lane even on four lane highways as the drains failed when there was so much rain and runoff that there was no where for it to go.
Leaving Panama City, the surf was high, and full of undertow.
We were able to get through the Watercolors/Seaside area quickly, and then the deluge:
When we had to go single file, most of the time everyone cooperated, letting people in from gas stations and side roads, taking turns, etc. Then, there are always those @$$&*!>$ who think everyone is being too cautious and polite, who break the line, go thundering up through the lake, discover no, no they really can’t make it and barge back into the line. Karma catches up with the arrogant.
The worst part, the very worst, was going past the SanDestin outlet malls; when the skies break forth and there is no possible point to being on the beach, the tourists head for the malls and the restaurants. The malls were booming! Traffic crawled by. Even the poorest restaurant was also full; thank God we were still full from breakfast.
This is the bridge leaving Destin; on the right side of the road in front of that stalled truck is about a huge puddle a foot deep:
Outside Navarre, both rain and traffic began to lighten up. We stopped at a little roadside place I’d always wanted to try for something that might have been our late lunch or our early dinner – TC’s Front Porch, it’s across from the Navarre Butterfly House.
There was a small crowd inside, guys hanging out at the bar, looked like fishermen waiting for it to clear up enough to go back out and catch some fish, some tables with college kids down on the beaches for summer break, maybe lifeguards – swimming not allowed with the heavy surf and heavy rip tides running.
Everyone pretty much just waiting out the storm, tossing back a few brews, just hanging out. I had some pretty good crab cakes and AdventureMan had the chili. It was all OK. Beach food.
The Qatari Cat was delighted to see us, and slept as close as he could to me all night (not such a great thing; I appreciate that he thinks I am special, but he is hot, and I can’t turn over without disturbing him . . . aarrgh) This morning, however, he ran and hid under the bed when he saw us getting ready to go out; we think he was afraid we were taking him back to Wee Tuck’Em Inn, LOL.
Here’s the thing. For us, we were just inconvenienced, and it was just minor inconvenience. We had the time, we knew beach traffic would be heavy, it was a little adventure.
For people who earn a living from tourism, for some of these people, this weekend was probably a disaster. The hotels are packed for the Fourth of July weekend, and lots of fireworks displays are planned, big entertainment – it’s a big money making time of the year. With the four day storm, some people probably cancelled hotel reservations, and when the rain didn’t stop, others left. Many of the July Fourth fireworks displays were cancelled. Local fests were rained out. I am guessing most of the malls and restaurants did OK; not much else to do, but it rained SO much that there is a lot of flooding and a lot of damage. This, for many people, was not a good weekend.
World War Z
I talked AdventureMan into going to see World War Z with me – us and half of Pensacola showed up for the early matinee, and we got the last two seats. I had thought it’s been out for a while and people would be going to see something else, but all the theaters showing it in Pensacola are selling out every show. That doesn’t mean every seat was already filled – a lot of people had bought tickets online but weren’t there. On the other hand, while we got two good seats – they were – LOL – at opposite ends of the row!
World War Z is not a movie where you want to be sitting on opposite ends of the row.
World War Z is Contagion on steroids.
Did you ever see Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead? I used to love scary movies, until I saw that movie. The scary movies were funny, not so scary at all – and George Romero changed all that with this low-budget horror classic. I think I liked it because it had a scientific kind of origin – a virus.
World War Z takes a similar approach, a scientific approach, and it is also very scary because it is hard, very hard, to be scientific and observant when your entire world becomes unsafe, when everything you known has turned to chaos. The zombies aren’t so damaged and tattered as Romero’s zombies, but they have the same herd mentality, a frenzied mob mentality, and an Alien-like skittering and swarming that makes my skin crawl.
I love seeing Brad Pitt as a responsible family man. He does it well. He has to make some very tough decisions in this movie, and you get to see that this sweet family man has another, tougher side.
AdventureMan was glad we went; he also thinks this will be a great computer game. We agreed it was scary because it had some things in it that truly can make life dangerous – you know, political leaders dying en masse, political and social systems dissolving and life becoming a brute struggle for survival with scarce resources . . . having swarming zombies kicks all that up a notch.
Not a movie for anyone under five. Maybe not even ten, if the kids are sensitive, or prone to bad dreams . . .
Our son said we need to read the book; it’s only sort-of like the movie, and has a lot of very edgy things to say about our current political system and leaders. Hmmmm. . . might have to do that.
Retrograde 4th of July
Alternate title: Every man needs a Kubota
As we were listening to the news and weather Tuesday night before going to bed, the weather woman was talking about a ‘retrograde’ storm system. She showed us on the map; normally our weather blows from west to east, but this storm was going to blow east to west, and then reverse and go west to east again. Going counter to the normal flow is ‘retrograde.’
Our entire holiday was retrograde. Which, for people like AdventureMan and I, is not too bad. It’s a good thing we married one another; we are not to good with same-same all the time, if things get too tame, we shake things up a little bit. It’s not good or bad, it’s just the way we are wired.
One of the first differences was that we weren’t leaving early in the morning to drive down Highway 98 along the beach road; we were picking up our adorable grandson, going to his house, and as soon as our daughter-in-law got off work we would hit the interstate.
It all went well; cloudy skies but light traffic, all was well until we left the highway headed south . . . and started hitting the “Roads Under Water” signs. We didn’t see any roads under water until the car in front of us hit what looked like a shiny spot on the road and went almost a foot deep. AdventureMan cooly slowed and drifted steadily through the lake in the road – and we thanked God to be in a vehicle a little higher off the ground than a sedan.
After the lake in the road, it started raining, a little sprinkling, and then a steady rain.
The temperatures dropped.
Here is what we had planned – dinner with family and friends, a day of fun and heading out for sun downers on the boat to watch the fireworks on the 4th. Heavy applications of insect repellant and sunscreen.
Here is what happened – the deluge.
Here is what was cool about the deluge – the temperatures were the coolest, 24 hours around the clock – that we’ve seen in a month. We could sit out on the screened porch looking at the bayou, listening to the rain fall – it was heavenly! No insect repellent needed. No sun screen needed.
Our hostess is a wonderful and creative cook; unafraid to try new recipes. Dinner after our rainy drive in: Red snapper, baked in a crust of crumbs with butter and parsley, so delicious. Green beans and mushrooms; so good I had them for breakfast another day 🙂 Holy smokes, desserts. The best pound cake ever, topped with peaches in their own juice and whipped cream, or chocolate red velvet brownies.
It was a fabulous lazy day. In the afternoon, our friend got an emergency call; friends whose husband was out of town were facing a flooding situation. Loading up his Kubota, he and AdventureMan went over and (manly manly) DUG A DITCH! getting all dirty and wet in the process, coming home with those grins that only activities like a good hunting trip, a successful fishing trip or digging a good ditch can create.
We had great plans that night to visit The Blue Fig (“They have mohammara!” my hostess said, knowing my weakness) but when we got there, it was closed . . . and, oddly every restaurant along that strip seemed to be closed. And side roads were flooded, more big lakes of water in the roads. It had rained so much and for so long that the runoff had no where to go.
Our little grandson fell asleep while we were searching for a restaurant that was open, and slept in my arms through dinner. I know this might be the last time; he is getting to be such a big boy, so I just treasured the time and listened to him breathe.
I know it may not seem like such a great holiday to you, but it was fun. We focused on conversations and laughed a lot. AdventureMan thinks every man might need a Kubota. We listened to the rain fall on the leaves, the roof, the bayou. We listened to the frogs celebrate the 4th of July. We really had a great time.
St. John the Baptist and the Holy Spirit
This entry is a totally Here There and Everywhere moment; the impetus of which is today’s reading from Luke about the birth of John the Baptist, or as he is known in the Moslem world, the Prophet Yahya. We visited his tomb in Damascus; at our church in Kuwait on the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, one of the readings was from the Quran. I love it when our worlds intersect and we can discover what we can learn from one another, to the advantage of all.
I also love it that each meditation from Forward Day by Day lists at the bottom the area of the world we are to include in our daily prayers. I love praying for Nigeria. I have old friends from my Kuwait church living there, and also a neighbor from Doha, a sweet book-club friend who lived across the street, who now lives in Lagos.
When I pray for Nigeria, I see the tiny flame of the holy spirit entering into each heart, and then I see God blowing lightly on each person, so that the flame grows. The flame helps them reach out and encourage one another, and others see, and are attracted, and thus the holy spirit spreads. I imagine it covering Nigeria, all believers, seeing one another as fellow believers, not as Ibo or Christian or village or . . . you get the drill. I pray that the light spreads through all Africa, and tiny embers spread out to join, and then further, so that sparks unite all over the world.
I pray, too, for Damascus, and for Syria, and all our friends there; I think of all the wonderful adventures and times we have shared in Syria, and I know and trust with all my heart that our good and loving God can bring good out of this horror. I pray for it to happen sooner rather than to allow this suffering to endure.
. . . And that was just ONE synapse connecting early on a Monday morning, LOL. Have a great day. 🙂
MONDAY, June 24 The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist
Luke 1:57-80.
On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. But his mother said, “No; he is to be called John.”
Most of us don’t receive such pointed visions that show us the fork in the road—“this way, not that way”—but all of us are constantly cultivating either a disposition of “my will be done” or of “thy will be done” that will suddenly show up in those crossroads moments. It may appear like divine intervention, but it is long-term divine cultivation.
Living into a larger pattern is both exciting and terrifying, because it means letting go of convention and stepping into new territory. Like Elizabeth and Zechariah, we do not step forward blind but with a promise: God remembers, and God is gracious.
And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
I danced when I saw the Amazon box; rarely do I buy hardcover (hurts too much when they fall over if I fall asleep reading, too bulky to carry on planes) but this one I was on the waiting list for, mail it as soon as it is published! Khaled Housseini, author of Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns has a new runaway best-seller; thanks to him I’ve just spent three days in Afghanistan, Paris and Los Angeles.
As the book opens, I am big brother to a baby sister whose Mom died in childbirth, living in a remote village in Afghanistan. Life is tough, but through the eyes of these children, life is idyllic, even though food is scarce and winters are cold. We have a huge oak tree with a swing, we play with the other children, and we have each other. Our father’s new wife is kind enough, but is busy with her own children, and the drudgery of cooking, cleaning and making do in a very small, poor Afghan village.
Later, I am Pari, living in Paris with an alcoholic, self-absorbed mother, making a life for myself, but always with a nagging feeling of something just outside my peripheral vision, another life . . .
The tale is told through the eyes of many, and on the way to the end of the tale we meet a wide spectrum of humanity, suffer the ills of war, callousness and unintended cruelties. We find that the man with superficial charm also saves and changes the lives of many, we find a doctor who finds fulfillment serving in the poorly resourced hospitals of Afghanistan, and we feel the agonies of a dutiful daughter watching her father fade into the world of Alzheimer’s.
It’s a wonderful, wild ride, richly textured, and when it finishes, you are not ready for it to end.
Prohibited For Travel in Kuwait
LOL, the have you been to the web page of all the items that are banned for traveling in and out of Kuwait? It’s all in Arabic, but you can understand the photos.
My last move to Kuwait, I was allowed several hundred pounds to take on the airplane. I packed an entire set of flatware, and all my good kitchen knives, and lots of scissors. . . like, who can live without scissors???
Honest Judge, so sorry, I had NO idea! No one asked me if I was carrying dangerous flatware in my baggage!
Stormy Ending to a Glorious Weekend
We had a great weekend, and thank you for all your good wishes. 🙂
In spite of the storm warnings, Friday and Saturday were glorious beach days, and oh what fun we had in the pool with our son, his wife, and our grandson, who is becoming a real swimmer. Then, some time during the night, a storm really did blow in, lowering the temperatures, lowering the skies and creating the perfect opportunity to get back home to the Qateri Cat.
The sitting area in our room; around the corner was also a little kitchen 🙂
In contrast the the previous two days, this morning was cool and very very rainy and windy, a great day to head back home. There were people body surfing those waves!
Thank you, AdventureMan. After all these years, so many great times, so many adventures, and the fun continues. 🙂
Pensacola: Fiesta of Five Flag Parade
I’ve never lived anywhere with so many parades, and as Pensacola cools down a little and an offshore breeze blows away the heat of the day, a parade sounds like fun. Tonight is the Fiesta of Five Flags Parade. I can’t think of a parade since Lent, so maybe this is the kick off of the new season. Pensacola has an active and lively social scene, with all these Mardi Gras Krewes, and the older our grandson gets, the more of the parade we get to see! I think we got through three quarters of the parade tonight, and oh what fun.
The people on the floats are having a great time. They have these great alter-egos, get to wear elaborate costumes, and there may be some alcohol involved, LOL. The people on the ground are having a great time, you can really get into the waving and trying to catch the beads. Some of the beads are prettier than others, but as AdventureMan says, it’s all plastic. Having said that, you should see him scramble! He is good at catching beads.
And oh my, they are so good to the kids, with stuffed toys, beads, ice cream bars, frisbees, trinkets, including pieces of eight!
Honestly, there are some things in life I will never get tired of – parades and fireworks. I feel so blessed to live in Pensacola.
These photos are not in the right order because I just did a group dump into the photo gallery, and it scrambled them when they were inserted into the blog entry.
The parade always starts with the Pensacola motorcycle police, with flashing lights and roaring engines!
I love that they decorate the horses tails:
And then AdventureMan pointed out they also rubbed glitter into the horses haunches to make them pretty 🙂
So many beads! We got to the parade a mere ten minutes before it began, but it was more lightly attended, and we were able to be right up front. Our little grandson had a great view, and people were so kind giving him beads, throwing him beads, toys, etc.
Look at all those beads they plan to throw! There was a throne on this float with King Tut!
These ladies were having a grand time!
The Mayoki Indians seemed to be the Krewe having the best time of all, with two floats loaded with beads, and more ‘foot Indians’ handing and throwing beads into the crowds:
The flame throwing baton twirler got lots of applause:
We saw our little grandson rubbing his eyes and asked if he was ready to go home, and he was. One of these days he will be old enough we will see an entire parade. I had a minor concern that Tropical Storm Andrea would blow in bad weather and make the parade unlikely, but nothing of the sort, we had great weather, a lovely evening and a wonderful time making good memories with our little grandson.
Forty Years Wedding Anniversary
“You’re going to celebrate your anniversary for three days?” my friend asked incredulously.
“No, no, actually, it’s in two parts, we are celebrating the entire weekend, three days, but it’s because it is too hot to walk around New Orleans; so this is just part one, and in December we will celebrate part two with a trip to New Orleans when we can walk around and enjoy all the Christmas decorations and stay somewhere nice.”
It’s what we do.
There have been some years, particularly years with moves, or new positions, or new contracts in them, when anniversaries have sort of fallen by the wayside. We are enjoying making up for all the missed anniversaries, now that we have the great luxury of time.
We have all kinds of fun plans, a hotel stay, a dinner in a fine restaurant, star gazing out at Ft. Pickens, maybe a dolphin cruise, and a trip up in the very large beach ferris wheel, while it is still at Pensacola Beach. We plan a day in several pools with our son and his wife and our little grandson. All. or part, or some of this may really happen, depending on what the weekend weather looks like. Ft. Pickens has already evacuated all the campers with concerns over this Tropical Storm Andrea coming in, and a dolphin cruise or a trip up on the great wheel may not be such a hot idea at 40 – 50 mph winds, LOL.
AdventureMan and I knew when we married that we were in it for the long haul. We also knew it wouldn’t be easy. We come from different cultures, different life styles. We both had independent lives and responsibilities. We moved a lot. It wasn’t always easy, but then whose life is, when you know that life from the inside? We’ve had some great adventures, and some fabulous, astounding experiences. We’ve met extraordinary people and made very special life-long friends.
When I told AdventureMan our weekend might not be as exciting as planned, he laughed and said “we can bring our books.” He always knows how to make me laugh, and taking books is exactly what we did when we first got married, and would take weekend trips to a lakeside resort called Chiemsee; it would be snowing and cold and we would go into this large old lodge with it’s double doors and double shuttered windows, with it’s eiderdown comforters and huge fireplace, and we would pack books. We would sleep and read, and sometimes go eat. If that’s how this anniversary turns out, it’s a very comfortable and familiar way to celebrate.:-)
AdventureMan loves this blog. He always looks for his name. 🙂 Happy Anniversary, dear husband.
It’s Why We’re Here: Lunch at Taco Rock
There is a graciousness in Pensacola that reminds me of life in the Middle East, although the local Pensacolians would be astounded to be compared with the Middle East. If you look closely, though, you can see the similarities.
There is politeness and civility toward others, even strangers. When workmen are in your home, you offer them ice water, or iced tea, and you ask about their families before they start work. It seems to us that when we call for help, we get the same service people coming to our house; I don’t think it is an accident.
People chat a little before they get down to business. I think many a Pensacolian would feel comfortable in the souks, sitting and drinking a little tea before they start to discuss the appropriate price level for the bauble they are considering. They ask about a person’s health, and they ask about your family. They take meals to those who are suffering or recovering.
People spend time with family. Families go to church together, families have meals together, families share child rearing. Multi-generations live near one another. People who went to school together more than fifty years ago form their own kind of family, sharing deeply, attending the funerals of one another’s kin. Funerals are well attended. Very Arab, if only they knew.
There are pockets in the United States where you find groups of Arab nationals; Pensacola has these groups, even a discreet mosque or two. There are stores selling international supplies, including zaat’r and sumak and harissa, chana dal, bulger, wuhammara . . . and restaurants billing themselves as ‘Mediterannean’ whose food would be recognizable to those in the Levant and the Gulf.
There is almost always a breeze off the Gulf to fight the heat and humidity and mosquitoes, and, by the grace of God, there is air conditioning and ice water coming out of the refrigerators. Life is sweet.
Life is all the sweeter because we can get together with our son and his family on the spur of the moment, and end up at a great family place like Taco Rock, where our little grandson can get down when he gets restless, and where there is plenty of time for us to chat, discuss Django Unchained, discuss new developments in entertainment technology, discuss upcoming vacations and arrangements – there is that great luxury of time together, and tasty food at reasonable prices. LOL, this is the Pensacola equivalent of a Michelin Red R, good local cuisine at reasonable prices. Hmmmm, Mexican is probably not qualified as good local food at reasonable prices, but close enough . . .
He is such a delight, our little grandson, who calls the coming baby “that little girl,” as in “when that little girl comes, I’m going to teach her how to float on her back!”
This week, there is another parade! Pensacola must be the parade capital of the world; so many parades! We’ll pick up our grandson, stand on the corner and wave our arms until they throw us some beads. Great fun and good exercise. 🙂
This post is really a great excuse to post some new photos of our grandson 🙂
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Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 