Old Haunts Revisited, 3

Pensacola Beach

These next pics kind of say it - white sand beaches and clear, Caribbean blue-colored water!

Here is our little family enjoying the Florida Gulf Coast beaches 40 years ago.

See, Jack, your Uncle Rick was into snorkeling, too!
(More about that in a minute)

 These pics were taken a little further south on the Gulf in Florida.
  Our family took a trip to Orlando right before we moved from Biloxi to Wichita Falls, Texas.

I was pregnant with Stacy and she was born in Wichita Falls.

Miss Adelaide is striking a model's pose in her cute suit and shades.

Her eyes are sensitive to the sun, like her grandma, and she wanted them on, even when she was swimming.

The property has three pools and a hot tub.

The kiddie pool was perfect for the kids to play in.

The kids loved the hot tub. . . 

. . . and so did Grandpa!

The pools were warm and we lucked out - the weather had not been good before we came and it was raining on Friday when we left, but while we were there, it was perfect!

For dinner the first night, the hotel desk clerk told us about a little casual grill, hooked to a motel across the street, that served fresh local fish.  It didn't look like much, but the locals know about it.  The seating is all outdoors, the prices were great, and every night a different band plays in the bar.

The fresh fish was absolutely deicious!

Mindy found a little shop after dinner where she purchased a turtle floatie, a kid's snorkel set and a ball. 

Next morning, we hit the pools!
Charlie's having a ball!
(Sorry, I couldn't resist!)

After awhile, we hit the beach!

The kids spent lots of weekends last year on the beaches of Galveston.

One of their favorite things to do was build sand castles.

So they got to work!

Pretty great castle - right?

Jack amazed us how he really took to snorkeling.  He would swim the distance of the pool, over and over.

The second night, we ate dinner at Peg Leg Pete's.

It was touristy, but the kids loved it!

iPhone pics, waiting for our food

Oh, sadness!

All great things come to an end.  When we woke up Friday morning to pack, it was raining, 

so we felt a little bit better leaving!

We had over an 8 hour drive ahead of us, or so we thought!  It actually took us over 12 hours to get home, adding in the several slow-downs and traffic actually stopping for an hour on the bayou out of Baton Rouge. And, at times, we drove through some serious rain! When you hear that it comes down in buckets, that is no exaggeration!  As we were coming into Houston, trying to see to hook up to freeway after freeway, it was scary!

Roger is a driving champ!

But, as we planned our drive home, we said, why not go back through Kenner, north of New Orleans, instead of the freeway that was north, so we could eat at Harbor Seafood again. It would just add a half hour to our drive time.

That's how great the food was!

This is the menu of the Specials of the Day.

They have a huge menu, including oysters on the half shell . . .

. . . and many kinds of fish, meat and seafood po'boys.

This is a soft shell crab and catfish combo.

This is the Stuffed Eggplant Pirogue (described above)

Oh.   my.   goodness!

This is on my top 10 dishes of all time!

I began posting this Old Haunts trip 
with a pic of food, 
and I'll end with it!

What great food we had, what an amazing trip down Memory Lane, and what fun we had revisiting our old haunts and sharing stories with Mindy and her darling children!

She wasn't even born yet in those Golden Memory days, 
but she asked lots of questions 
and now knows probably way more than she wants!