Blue Monday - Exploring Ft. Walton Beach

Many people think of lying on the beach in the sand while visiting the coast. We visited in Dec., the week before Christmas. There weren't many people out and about, so we had the beach pretty much to ourselves for walking, sitting, etc. I had always wanted to visit the beach in the winter.

I was not disappointed - we had a wide range of weather during our visit. They experienced a "cold snap" according to a local. It was still quite pleasant to us, although we did wear a jacket in the evening. The wind was a little blustery one day & we had the scary experience of being in tornado warnings one afternoon. But the storms didn't last long and we saw one of the most beautiful sunsets afterwards. I will share them at a later date.

I must tell you of our visit to Wal-Mart. What vacation is complete without a visit to the local Wal-Mart. This just happened to be the day of the storms. As we are leaving the condo, the rain begins. Good thing the umbrellas are still in the car! We take them into Wal-Mart as a precautionary measure....We shop & find all of the essentials (and a few nonessentials) that we will need for our stay. After checking out, we notice a large group congregated in the entrance. As we approach, we see that we will not be able to stand there as it is full and it is raining...raining heavily! Finally we get the umbrellas up & decide to make a dash for it! You've got three women with umbrellas, purses and bags trying to make a dash for the truck....to find that they can't locate the truck! Oh no!!!! The wind is whipping, we are getting drenched...searching rows, upon rows to find the gray truck. My umbrella is caught by the wind. It is turned inside out - fills with water - then the wind catches it - turns it back down and you guess it....water flows like a waterfall over my head...numerous times. The water was very cold, so each time I screeched very loudly! So during the torrential downpour with whipping winds, three women running to and fro..laughing like lunatics and looking like drowned rats have people wondering what they are doing. Finally, we locate the truck! We'll never forget that shopping trip. We made it back to the condo...took off our clothes and put them in the dryer...wondering why we had taken such care to get ready that morning. Sorry no pictures of the three drowned rats!
























Catholic Church


















Calm Ocean

























I think he liked posing for us.





















A bit of a wave.


















Sunset with a hint of blue sky.























Interesting column. Thousands of seashells.


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