The Antithesis of Spring Break: October at Panama City Beach

Panama City Beach is known as one of the classic spring break destinations in America. But I’m 32, married, and college is all just sort of a blur. So I planned a PCB trip for October. And it was wonderful.

Now I’m pretty low-key when it comes to accommodations and tend to pick the cheapest option that doesn’t have the words “bed bugs” highlighted in it’s online reviews. A location right next to the ocean was key to the goal of this trip: spending as much time at the beach as humanly possible.

For a mere $39 per night, I booked a room at the Catalina Court Motel in nearby Laguna Beach through one of those vacation rental sites. It’s got a total 1950s vibe and looks slightly suspicious from the outside, but there were renovation efforts going on. It certainly wasn’t anything fancy, but it was literally right across the street from the beach, which was perfect. The room (#9) also had a kitchen with a fridge, dishes, microwave, and stove. Bonus!

P1050169I’ve been writing for a living and working from “wherever” for nearly three years now, and I’ve developed a knack for snapping into “work mode” at a moment’s notice. Sure, I have my unfocused days just like anyone else. But most of the time, I can get into the zone and essentially nothing can distract me.

But although I make up my own schedule, I am still a creature of habit and routine. My beach week routine went something like this:

  • Wake up at 7-something
  • Walk to the beach to do yoga
  • Eat breakfast
  • Work in the hotel room all morning
  • Lunch
  • Take my laptop out to the beach and work there for the early-mid afternoon
  • Pack up and do something active, like SUP, biking, or running
  • Shower off my nastiness
  • Have dinner on the beach and play some guitar as the sun sets OR depending on the mood of the day, go out for dinner, adult beverages, and beach town exploration

P1050164It was a schedule that suited me just fine and really solidified my belief that a beach town would be an awesome place to live for awhile. Pier 77 was my gateway to beauty, relaxation, and peace and quiet because it was October – and no one visits here this time of year!
P1050170Stand-up paddleboarding was my favorite new outdoor activity for 2015 because we invested in an inflatable SUP that’s totally portable and considerably more affordable than the traditional type. I’d totally recommend the one that I’m carrying here, which is available on Amazon and called the “Blue Wave Sports Stingray Inflatable Stand Up Paddleboard with Paddle and Hand Pump, 10-Feet.”

P1050175The beach was literally this empty in the mornings and evenings. However, afternoons saw a few more crowds of sunbathers and families on vacation. Temperatures were in the 70s and 80s, and somehow we avoided rain almost every day.
P1050195For the very first time in life, I practiced my guitar in the wide open outdoors. I just started taking lessons for the first time in the summer, so I’m clearly not stage-ready. But there was just something incredibly peaceful and exhilarating about strumming along to the ocean waves. Still a little crowd shy, I prefer audiences of stuffed monkey.
IMG_2883I’ve been pretty good about doing daily yoga in the morning at home, but yoga on the beach in the morning is 100% superior to any type of indoor class for me. A few paddleboarders in the distance, perhaps, but no rowdy college kids or screaming babies in sight to throw off my balance.
IMG_0359But of course, my restless spirit can only sit on a beach for so long before I start going nuts. One worthwhile little evening trip was to the Grayton Beer Company, one of the few breweries in the area.

P1050157The warehouse-style brewery is only open for a few hours in the early evening on Thursdays, the day we drove over to South Walton. But the most interesting aspect of this experience was the oyster shucking operation in the parking lot. We ordered some cheese-topped oysters and gumbo from the little husband-wife team working the tent outside and played a game of bags to entertain ourselves over samplers. Appropriately, the memorable brew that stands out to me was their Franklin County Oyster Stout.

To take advantage of a perfect-weather Saturday, we biked to Destin to check out the boardwalk area. I find it amusing that all these tiny Florida towns along the way are named after California towns: Laguna Beach, Santa Monica, Seaside, Miramar Beach. The ride to Destin involved some bike lanes, trails, sidewalks, and shared traffic lanes, but it really wasn’t too bad.
IMG_0347The Destin Boardwalk is a festive and nostalgic little area full of shops, restaurants, bars, and some miniature carnival rides. There’s a marina here with lots of boats and some kayakers paddling away too.
IMG_0341On our very last day in the Florida Panhandle, we planned a final active adventure: hiking the Panama City Beach Conservation Park.
IMG_0376We initially set out on the yellow trail, which is marked as either “4 or 6 miles.” We must have missed the turn-off for the 4-mile loop, and that’s right about when the mosquitoes started attacking in full force.
IMG_2886It’s pretty rare that I don’t recommend a trail/park for hiking, but this would be one of them. The scenery was kind of nice at first, but became tedious and monotonous after awhile. The trail was straight, flat, never-ending, and packed with blood-thirsty bugs. Finally seeing the parking lot at the end of this trek was a sight for sore eyes.
IMG_2890October was an awesome time to visit the Panama City Beach area because it wasn’t packed with spring breakers, families, or snowbirds. I’m a big fan of traveling to places in the off-season to have destinations a little more to myself and not have to share. I’m an only child, so of course I’ve never been very good at sharing.

Crowds have less of an appeal to me the more I travel and the older I get. Some travel bloggers go on and on about the meaningful and inspirational interactions they have with other people when they travel. I very rarely have this experience, yet I don’t feel that I’m missing out. A little idle chit chat doesn’t make or break a trip for me, and I’ve come to enjoy the silence and reflection of finding my own way. Working for myself, without the clamor of a boss and coworkers, has made me even more introspective and self-entertained on work/travel trips, and I honestly wouldn’t want it any other way.11218894_10156323520200495_5317829905237282151_n

Oh, and this is still my favorite office set-up of all time! Hopefully, many more beach work days lie ahead in my not-so-distant future.

Turning 32 on Sapelo Island

As the days of August ticked by, 32 seemed like a pretty insignificant number, so I was half-expecting a pretty insignificant 32nd birthday. My creative husband who knows me all-too-well had something entirely different in mind.

Three days before my birthday, I was handed a packing list and told to be ready to leave at 10 am the next morning. Leave for where?

I had no clue….it was a surprise adventure and I was more than okay with that. There really aren’t enough fun surprises in life, so I wasn’t going to ruin this one by asking too many questions.

We took turns driving and five hours later, we arrived at this.

20150821_152232A ferry boat in the middle of nowhere. Okay…

I knew we were along the Atlantic coast in southeastern Georgia, and I remembered that there were some islands off the coast. I’d heard of these surprisingly situated islands, but had never been to any of them. That was all about to change.

P1040582With my trusty chimp sidekick, Ginger “Dunkey” Bromeliad by my side, I boarded the ferry and settled in for a short ride to Sapelo Island. Sapelo is one of the most remote and uninhabited islands along the Georgia coast, and actually it’s a national estuarine research reserve owned by the Department of Natural Resources.

Sapelo’s history dates back 4,500 years, when Native Americans settled here, but it’s best known for Civil War and slavery times. When the Union army started attacking the Georgia coastline, slave owners bailed, leaving many of their slaves behind to fend for themselves.

Some slaves who left the island came back later in search of family members and ended up settling here. Almost all residents of Sapelo Island today are their descendants.

We stayed at a VRBO property called “Sapelo Island-Leave the World Behind,” and our host, Lucy, picked us up at the ferry. The drive from the ferry was a small taste of what was to come, with dirt road, potholes, forests, and an utter lack of civilization. The only real town here is Hog Hammock, which has an estimated population of about 40-50 people.

P1040751There are no hotels on the island, and no restaurants either. We rented an attic apartment above Lucy and Mike’s home, which was actually spacious enough to sleep six if you really squeezed in. 
P1040590It was a totally comfortable place to stay, surprisingly with functional WiFi and TV. There was even a little outdoor patio with a table and chairs upstairs that we could use.

P1040761To get around the island, our hosts loaned us “The Beast,” a clunky, nasty SUV that could somehow still manage to maneuver the Sapelo wilderness.

truck

After settling in and getting acquainted with the island on a map, our first order of business was….THE BEACH! After all, what’s an island trip without the beach?

There are two beaches on Sapelo Island….the north beach and the south beach. But technically, they’re both on the south part of the island since the whole northern part is DNR territory and off-limits to cars.

Never before in all my days have I witnessed a more secluded and surreal beach. This shot was taken on Sapelo’s south (main) beach, Nanny Goat Beach, right before a ridiculous storm hit. And for the record, there were only three other people on the entire beach before the skies turned all dark and crazy.

Sapelo

Every morning I spent on the island started with yoga…
P1040606…and then a beach walk to discover strange creatures that called this place home.
P1040617Plenty of time was spent in a rare state of relaxation on the beach…reading, writing, playing Frisbee, sketching, and drinking wine. Sapelo is the best place I’ve found that really takes me away from it all.

But there are some local “tourist attractions” that we checked out during our time here too. One of them is the Reynolds Mansion, which actually offers tours if you show up at the right day and time. We did not, but we did check out the grounds and eat a can of beans on the sidewalk.

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It’s named after big tobacco heir Richard Reynolds who purchased the property in the 1930s and started letting the University of Georgia use the facilities for marine research. In its heyday, the 1920s, the mansion was used to entertain rich and fancy guests in the automotive industry.

Lucy and Mike also let us use some rusty old pink beach cruisers that they had in the garage to explore the island on two wheels.

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We pedaled to the nearby African Baptist Church, which has a service once a month.

P1040645Although cars aren’t allowed on the north part of the island, bikes are. So we set off to see what the more remote areas of the island were like. Sapelo Island is about 10 miles long and 4 miles wide, which makes it larger than Bermuda!
P1040644All seemed to be going so well on this little self-guided bike tour….until we hit the massive puddles.
P1040648The night before, very shortly after that picture of me on the beach with the crazy sky was taken, a torrential downpour hit and made a big mess of Sapelo’s dirt roads.

After walking our bikes around entirely too many flooded sections of road, we had to give up on the northbound route and head south instead. Fortunately, there was plenty to see down there too.
P1040655Sapelo’s lighthouse was built in 1820 by Winslow Lewis and repaired extensively after the Civil War and also an 1898 hurricane.

But a trip to the island wouldn’t be complete without spending time at BOTH beaches, so after a much-needed shower, we headed to the north beach, Cabretta Island, to scope out the scene. 
P1040694Just when I thought Nanny Goat Beach was remote, I discovered Cabretta Island and my mind was blown. The “roads” to get here were questionable at best, and we passed through was an abandoned campground on the way. Camping here would have been amazing, but apparently it only takes reservations for large groups for staffing purposes, not parties of two.
P1040707Ahhh…another secluded beach afternoon before a storm. A gal could really get used to this.

But alas, I had two more islands to briefly check out before heading home and accepting the fact that I’m a 32-year-old human being. The next stop was St. Simons island, which is far more inhabited and touristy. Don’t get me wrong…it’s still really nice though, and I’d move there in an instant.

I kicked off my actual birthday day by stand-up paddleboarding in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of St. Simon’s Island.

20150824_090526We met up with a local guy to accompany us since it was only our second time SUP-ing and the last time was two years ago. Compared to the last time in Lake Michigan (Chicago), this time was a breeze! I didn’t fall…not even once…and I even pulled off a couple easy yoga moves on the board.

After an essential ice cream stop post-SUP, we only had a little bit of time to spend on Jekyll Island. This is a built-up island with lots of new hotels, restaurants, and shops….and also a sea turtle center. My favorite part about this particular place though was the driftwood beach.

P1040774

This beach is located on the north end of the island and is pretty much a tree graveyard. It’s a bit sad actually, because the north end of the island is slowly eroding away and leaving the trees like this. But for now, it’s a surreal, haunting, and beautiful place that’s unlike any other beach I’ve ever seen.

It was really hard leaving the islands and coming home, as you might expect. A true getaway, far away from technology, obligations, and responsibilities, was really what I needed and spending a four-day weekend here really cleared out a lot of mental clutter.

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For the longest time, I haven’t had a huge “draw” to a particular place where I could see myself plopping down for a while. Now all I can think about is living in a chill beach town…where my days start with yoga in the sand and end with sketching in the sunset.

I guess turning 32 wasn’t really so insignificant after all.