Are We to Plan Z Yet?

When we lost our sunshine just before entering the Sunshine State, we didn't get it back for about three days! So when we got up on our first full day in Florida, we were greeted with haze and humidity. It didn't slow us down from enjoying our breakfast on the balcony! (We brought food with us so we could eat in as much as possible.)

It may not be a pretty Florida view, but it's so hard to care when you're outside in late November without a winter coat! 

Our plan for Friday had been to take a morning walk on the beach, pack a picnic lunch and head for a nearby state park to explore and eat, watch the sunset at the condo, have Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner, and round out the day at a nearby ice cream shop.

We did ONE of those things. As you might imagine, you'll see a lot of the (!!!) spoiled plan moments in today's post. 

The one thing we did? The morning walk on the beach. Goodness, the sounds of waves crashing just never gets old. Amazingly enough, this was the calmest beach we saw all week and was one of the only days the flags weren't red.

Check out this adorable sand art!!

We later learned there had been a pumpkin to the left of the turkey, and it said "always"...but it was destroyed before we arrived. It wasn't the only sand art we saw all week, so stay tuned for more pretties!

Well, the forecast called for storms throughout the afternoon, so going to a park for a picnic seemed a bit on the sketchy side. (!!!) So instead, we made our way down the road to a restaurant Ryan found in an online hunt. It was called the Surf Hut, and we were able to sit on the porch and look out over the Gulf while we ate. Not too shabby!

Oh! I notice I'm sporting the black backup sunglasses (freebies from a Death Wish coffee order years ago) which reminds me that my favorite sunglasses broke right when we arrived in Florida. I'm still sad about it. (!!!) They were possibly my most favorite pair I've ever owned, and I JUST got them this summer.

As we were leaving the Surf Hut, we noticed the car was leaking fluids and making funny sounds. We had actually noticed some car issues right when we arrived the day before, so we were both not surprised and not amused to find them continuing and worsening. As you might imagine, car troubles when over 800 miles from home is not the best news, so our next stop was...

We spent about an hour there (!!!) and I can now mark off my bucket list "soaking in the sun in chair in the Tuffy parking lot." They indicated we were okay for the time being, but we should have the car checked out at home. Their diagnosis included the fact that it was SO HUMID. And that is true. My hair reached Monica Gellar levels, all the papers in our condo warped, and there was actual water just sitting on the tops of cars. Yeah. It was humid. Side note: it is so weird to me to see such a humid day that is also not such a sweltering day. My Indiana self is accustomed to blistering heat accompanying humidity, so that was just so weird.

We made our way back to our condo and decided to walk around exploring for a while. Still no storms, you know. They would have come if we'd gone to that park! (!!!)

I love palm tree lined streets. 

The high-rise on the left is the one where we stayed. 

We didn't have any Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner, as we had planned, since our Thanksgiving dinner had not worked out (!!!) but I had leftovers from lunch, and Ryan ate from the food we brought with us, so we stayed in and had a great night anyway! We elected not to go out for ice cream since we'd gone out for lunch and we'd gotten coffee on our walk. Time to save a little money!

I do have two random things to show you from this day. 

First, this was hanging on the fridge. I am not at all mocking its message. I know some people really don't pay attention to the beach warning flags. But I will say that it was a startling discovery when we arrived for our trip!

And remember how I told you one of the issues with the condo was the lack of extra toilet paper? The property manager told us he would have some sent over to us, and he did! But we had to laugh, because it came via Instacart. There was a knock on the door, and a lady handed Ryan this bag of TP. Ryan told me, "I bet she thinks there is something really bad happening here, when our entire order was a giant bag of toilet paper!"

It may not have been the start to our trip that we planned, and in many ways was not the start we wanted, but it did make for great stories.