Emerald Coast, Round 2, Part 2

We started the day by driving over to Topsail Park, which is about five miles east of where we're staying. We inquired about taking a kayak later in the week, although my mom felt a little uneasy with the possibility of alligators. We walked about two miles to the beach and turned around. There were a lot of dunes, but my gosh, they're nothing like the midwest. These are more like hills, there's a ton of grass growing on them, and people aren't even allowed to walk on them either. What's the fun of a sand dune that you can't climb up?

Anyway, after cleaning up, we headed to Faith Assembly Church in Destin, or the Rock and Roll church, which is where my mom always goes when she is visiting. It's a blues based music church that is more of an older crowd but has a lot of youthful energy. You've never heard Amazing Grace until you've heard it performed mid-tempo blues with a sax solo in the middle.

It's definitely not a slick and polished church: there are no lyrics displayed anywhere, the stage lights were off when the service start, their online giving link is down, and on Facebook, they misspelled the world "church." But I guess there's something appealing about the rawness and realness of a church like that. Definitely worth returning.

Mom wanted to head over to Bass Pro Shoppe. It's funny, we had never gone there, and now we've visited twice in 9 months. All I could think about is if I had to do a Shipt order form this store, I would be so screwed. Fishing supplies, hunting gear, marine equipment, I may as well as have been staring into the human brain. She wanted to get a waterproof pouch for her kayaking and she was able to get that. I wasn't looking to buy anything, but when I saw the silver pouch containing the ready to eat Italian sausage sandwich, I nearly threw up in the aisle. It looked like a Manwich inside of the worst looking bread of all time. I swear, it was like some drunk guy said, "How can we go a few steps more disgusting from a combination of a sloppy joe and a hot pocket?"

I did make one stop inside of a spice shop. For a small bag of chimmichuri rub and a container of Butcher's Rub, I paid $19. These are the purchases that make all the sense in the world to me.

The sun was starting to emerge from the gray clouds so we headed home and I put some sun block home so I could have a little beach time. My friend, Cristin, drive two hours form Tallahassee and we met up for about an hour. It was OK but as I suspected, it did not feel like anything more than an online friendship. I wasn't disappointed, it was pretty much what I expected. I mean, let's face a little reality, when a girl is in her 30s and hasn't been kissed, there's a reason for it, and it is usually not her own choice.

It was around 3 pm and the Jets had just lost their seventh straight game. So i walked over to the beach bar at Pompano Joe's. As it turned out, it was Happy hour. On a Sunday afternoon too! I drank 4 Rum punches, $5 each. Was glad to drop the cash!

Mom made shrimp broccoli and pasta for dinner. The only other thing I remember about that night is doing this 1000 piece puzzle about the history of television which was so complicated. I think I spent 3 hours just putting the end pieces together. I also found out two bitches I used to know found guys to marry. More reasons for more beer. And sometimes alcohol is the only way to get through a jigsaw puzzle.