A little later, Jenn and Addie joined us while Will took a nap. I think she enjoyed her time in the sand, and it reminded me of our last beach trip together. They both took to collecting shells like beachcombers.
We saw someone with a kite, and I remembered the micro-kites we have always tucked into our sand toy basket, so Hadley gave it a whirl. There wasn't a ton of wind, but it was fun to watch her run and try to get it in the air! You can just see the red streamers off our micro-parrot kite.
Then Owen requested to be buried where he sat. It looked so fun that Hadley joined him!
Addie saw her chance to get them with the water guns while they couldn't strike back!
We had a delicious breakfast for dinner and a quiet evening in. Who knew that an extra comforter could be so much fun? We had a 12-legged blanket dragon (3 kids a la Chinese parade dragon) wandering around and then a blanket sled powered by Uncky Dan (wish it wasn't so blurry, but they must have been going fast!)
The next morning, the blanket turned into a fort where the three older kids worked on drawings and writings together, including Hadley's rendition of Harry Potter.
After lunch, we split up. Some went to check out Destin's boardwalk, J and O went to the beach, and Oma and Addie stayed at the house. The boardwalk was pretty quiet on a Wednesday afternoon. Hadley was the only kid at the fudge demonstration, so she got a free chunk for "being cute."
There really wasn't much to see in the off-season,
But these kids made a cute two-some.
After a hot walk up and down the boardwalk, we were looking for some sno-cones, but we had to settle for some hushpuppies at Dewey's. (Apparently, the sno-cones are only available at their other location.)
In the meantime, J and O were having a blast at the beach getting reburied and building Loaftown, so named for the loaf pans critical to their construction.
Feeling our beach time nearing an end, I needed one more walk on the beach! By the way, do some of these toe prints look a little more cartoonish than others? Ha!
It wouldn't be an outing in Destin without a jet or helicopter fly-over! The air force base nearby provided us with a bit of an airshow every day. This picture (and the one above) also shows you our beautiful dredge pipe that we had to walk over/around/ignore.
Our final dinner was at The Back Porch, whose strongest feature was its actual back yard, the beach! Owen did try his first raw oyster though, and lived to tell the tale.
But back to the beach... Beautiful silky sand, not crowded, soothing sound of waves, and just in time for another stunning sunset!
Then it was back to the house and the reality of packing up for the long drive home. It was a great visit that I wish we could have extended, but we had to get started early on our journey, because we were planning to stop at the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola for our resident air-heads. Unfortunately, the air base where it is located has been closed to the public since December! Their website did not allude to this very important information, so we had an hour detour with nothing to show for it, except for a scenic drive through Pensacola. As a consolation prize, we were going to drive right by the USS Alabama in Mobile, so we thought it would be worth a stop. Spoiler: it was!
Owen was over the moon, checking out all of the guns and weaponry on the deck. Hadley was less enthused, but sort of enjoyed pretending to shoot them.
The Alabama spent about 3 years in the Pacific during WWII, but didn't suffer any fatalities from enemy fire.
They actually had 3 self-led tours, which were like scavenger hunts (you had to find the next number), and it was much more Hadley's cup of tea.
We did one of the tours, which was mostly on deck, inside the big guns, and climbing to the upper levels. We saw the bridge, captain's chambers, and navigation rooms. Here's the view from as far up as we could go.
After that, the boys were ready to go check out the planes and tanks on the grounds.
Hadley, however, wanted to go below deck and complete the other two tours, so we split up. We saw the sleeping quarters, galley, brig, doctor's offices, ammunition handling areas, machine shops, laundry services, stores, and just about every other room necessary to make a ship function at sea.
Lastly, we did a quick spin through the USS Drum, a WWII submarine, before meeting back up with the boys to continue our trek. It was a little odd to return to reality during our dinner stop in Baton Rouge, where the TV was on ESPN, but they were talking about the lack of sports to cover as things were shutting down because of the COVID-19 outbreak. We also got word that school would be out another week. If only we'd found out a little sooner, we could have extended our beach vacation a little more after all!
No comments:
Post a Comment