I love Santa Rosa Beach and Sewanee and so do Jude and the boys. As a result, we vacation in both places at least once a year.
Santa Rosa Beach has been our preferred spring break destination. This week, in JP's 10th grade year and Joe's 6th grade year, I find myself here again. With so much changing in the boys' lives, it's nice to have a few things that stay the same. returning to Santa Rosa Beach and Sewanee keep me centered in a way.
I am not as wild about the house (Beyond the Sea) in Old Florida Village that I rented this year. It's located in the very front of the complex, which means it's one of the older houses. It's been updated but still showing wear and tear. The beds are smaller and, in fact, there doesn't seem to be a true master bedroom in the sense that there's no room with a king or queen size bed, only doubles. The layout of the house is a bit different, too, from the ones in which we're stayed in the past. On top of that, I was woken up this morning at 7 a.m. by a lady running a leaf blower right outside our house. Admittedly, these are first world problems but still, you get away for a week and you want it to be close to perfect. I do, anyway, because I always pick out the house we're going to say in, book it, and surprise the family when we arrive.
As I write every year, Santa Rosa Beach isn't quite the quiet, sleep town it was in the first decade vacationed here. There's been a lot of growth. New developments means new houses means less open space. Some of our favorite restaurants have closed or changed hands. Gulf Place, which was the hub of Santa Rosa Beach for years, was sold to the middle eastern owners of Alvin's Island - much to the dismay of locals and regular tourists, like us - and several of the longtime businesses were run out of the development.
Gone for the first time is Sunrise Coffee (Gulf Place) and YOLO, a bike rental and beach shop (Gulf Place). Also gone from earlier visits are the Pickle Factory and Grayt Coffee House. Blue Mountain Creamery changes hands, as our friend Jed's family sold it to someone else. That happened a couple of years ago, though, but we still miss stopping in to see Jed, whom we have known since he was a teenager.
It's rained a lot our first couple of days here, although the boys have still managed to squeeze in some beach time. Joe got it ocean yesterday in spite of the relatively cool weather, mostly because the waves were unusually big, which delighted him. Joe is a beach bum, like I was when in my younger days. He loves the beach and, especially, the ocean.
JP has been running every morning. I've gotten my 3-mile runs in mid-morning each day so far. JP and Joe have thrown the baseball every day, too, to stay loose. We brought the bucket of baseballs and foolishly forgot a fungo bat, so taking ground balls is out. This afternoon, I think we'll play pickle ball, one of Jude's favorite activities.
Jude and Joe have had a couple of close Scrabble games. Jude beat Joe by 5 points, then by 3 points. He's stalking her. We've all played Hearts the past couple of days, a favorite family pastime on vacation.
Jude and I, along with Joe, have read a lot. I love the fact that I am in a family of readers. In fact, I wouldn't have it any other way. I finished a surprisingly good book about Jimmy Carter's "malaise speech," so titled in spite of the fact that he never mentioned the word "malaise" in it. The book provided a nice remembrance of what our country was like in 1979, when I was 13 years old.
JP has been working, diligently (the only way he knows how to work), on making initial contact with various colleges' and universities' cross country and track coaching staffs to express an interest in their programs. With a non-revenue college sport, like cross country/track, it's important for interested high school students to reach out and make the initial contact to get on a particular school's radar. This we learned when, at JP's request, we met with an academic counselor, college sports liaison, and his cross country coach at MBA. If you want to run in college, this is the first step.
I've had to work too much during the day and today will be no different. One of the downsides of not having an associate working for me, at present, is there is no one to mind the store while I'm gone. That's makes it harder for me to completely disconnect from the office.
Coffee this morning at Black Bear Bread Company in Grayton Beach. A new place, at least to me. I think it's been open a couple of years. An interesting joint, on the small side, serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The coffee is not bad, either. The '80's music playing, loudly, gives it a nice vibe early in the morning, particularly for a 58 year old man like me. Music from my formative years.
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