Good gracious! I have not had so much fun in a long time as I did last week.
Not only was it Father’s Day, which we have not celebrated much before because of work obligations and conferences, but it was also our 33rd wedding anniversary. In May we were supposed to go to Cabo San Lucas. Well, you know what was going on then so all of that fell apart.
During the past few months we have been keeping a low profile as we were instructed to do, but we were at wits’ end by last weekend. We had not eaten out once in three months. We just went to The Vault two weeks ago for the first time since March. My Sunday school class has been meeting in homes with the proper size crowd and social distancing for a month. Otherwise, except for going to work, we have followed the rules for isolating.
My wife Nancy has a friend who owns a condo in Destin, across the bay from AJ’s. We had stayed in similar places in the past. Florida finally allowed Mississippi people in but not those from Louisiana. So we got the go-ahead and booked from last Wednesday through Sunday.
We contacted some old friends from Alabama and their schedule was open so we asked them to join us. They came in Thursday night. Nancy said she could only talk to me so long. So we got in on Wednesday and went to lunch at AJ’s. We found the boat we were going out on and had a leisurely afternoon since we were leaving at 4:30 in the morning to go fishing.
I booked the trip through internet on the Trade Winds, and we had a great time. It was a six-hour tour with about 15 people on it. It was a big boat but with a limited number of fishermen.
We caught enough fish to get worn out reeling them in. I lost a big fish on the retrieval. As I was bringing it up it was running with my line. The deck hand came over and I thought he said “stop reeling;” he claimed not, but the fish got off, though I had fun with him for a little while. The Mahi chassed a few times so that was fun. It was the middle of snapper season but all we caught were below the slot.
We had a good mix of B Liners and White Snapper. We were tired afterward so we headed back toward the room. I spotted a seafood market and got us a tub of oysters for snacks that evening.
Friday we spent the day on the beach. I got a little toasted since I don’t normally do a full day in the sun, but we were having fun. Saturday was deemed a day for recovery.
We drove to Miramar Beach and met another one of Nancy’s old friends for lunch at the Surf Shack. I suppose this is a local hangout, but it was on the water, all the windows were open, the breeze was blowing and the food was fine. That afternoon we caught back up with our friends from Troy who were casualities of the day on the beach.
We met at AJ’s to listen to music and enjoy ourselves. We have had several anniversaries there and this was our 33rd on Saturday. I guess following the trend AJ’s now serves sushi and it was fine.
We made our way back to the condo to rest a bit before having to pack up for the trip home on Sunday morning.
Nancy and I decided that it’s good to have to get back to work because that makes you appreciate the fun times you have while you are off and it makes them very special.
Have your own fun this summer, but keep your guard up and continue to social distance.
