Spring Break

Sigh

One of the drawbacks of living in Panama City Beach is in March when it becomes overrun by college kids on spring break. The locals have been warning us for months, "just you wait till March..." Well it is mid March now and we are in the middle of the season and it hasn't been too bad actually so far. Sure, there are a lot of inebriated fools in town, but we have learned their hot spots and just avoid those areas of beach strip in the afternoon and evening. (Stay away from the beach Wal-Mart! It's a war-zone.) The aerial banners fly all day long along the coastline, advertising anything from condoms to auto insurance to all you can eat buffets. Zachary and I both work across the bay in Panama City, so we miss out on a lot of the commotion too.

Today I got my bike back from the bike shop for repairs and took it for a tour of St Andrews State Park. I hadn't gone since last fall before I got really busy at work over this winter. My laziness paid off sort of for once 2 weeks ago. I have been meaning to get our bikes to the bike shop for maintenance.  We live on the second floor of a duplex with a small deck by our entrance. We keep a few things on the deck, like our bikes, grill, plants, lawn mower. We get home from work one afternoon, 2 weeks ago, and Zachary's bike was gone, and my bike had most of its accessories striped off of it. My bike remained, but we figured mine was spared because the front tire was flat. No, we didn't have a bike lock on them, we figured things were "safe" being on a second story deck. Our neighbors noticed a few things swiped from their deck too. Grrr... So shortly thereafter I took my bike to the shop and it lives inside the house now. It would have really stung if we paid for maintenance on both of them and then lost both of them to theft. Nonetheless, it is aggravating  but we should have known better leaving them unsecured too. We'll have to go bike shopping for Z soon.

Anyway, back to today. I went a bike tour this afternoon of St. Andrews State Park, to reconcile with my bike and to avoid the masses in the wonderful weather.

Shadow portrait

Divers

A group getting diving lessons in the shallows where the bay meets the Gulf.

Heron

Scorched Palms

The park did some controlled burns over the winter and the scrub palms are springing back to life.

Another Heron