Tourist Saturday

Carrie and Philip, my daughter and son in law, have come to Panama City for the first time.  Now Carrie has heard us talk about Panama City for several years but she has never had the opportunity to come and visit but that is now in the past.  They arrived around 10:00 on Saturday morning and the day of seeing the area began.  We started out at St. Andrews State Park checking in at all the beaches.  They were all being used but the kiddie pool area was packed.  What a difference a couple of weeks makes around here.  Of course, I could say that for the entire day.  Memorial Week End starts the busy season for Panama City Beach and it will not slow down now until after Labor Day.  I wish it could of been a little less crowded for Carrie and Philip's sake but we did expect this.  After the beach we went to Gator Lake where there were actually some gators to be seen.  There was also a Wedding on the dock.  I guess the Bride and Groom were "Gator Fans".   After Gator Lake we went to the boat dock, which was crazy and drove through the campgrounds, which were full.  A drive down Front Beach was next and a stop at Pineapple Willy's for lunch.  Now this is where we were surprised.  We intended to have to wait to get a table and instead we walked right in.  We got a great table on the open air pier and enjoyed the crowded beach from above.  We had a nice lunch and enjoyed the action on the beach.  After lunch we continued our drive down Front Beach, which was bumper to bumper, and went to Pier Park.  Pier Park was not too crowded yet but the crowds were growing as the day got longer.  We did some shopping and enjoyed a nice afternoon there.  After Pier Park we started to hit some of the beach stores.  Now, there has to be at least 100 Beach stores on Front Beach but we did not go into all of them.  We did check out a few.  When you have seen one Beach store you have pretty much seen them all but they all do have their own little quirks so it does not hurt to see a few.  We headed to the pier for sunset and did not know if there was going to be a good one or not.  There was a battle in the sky - clouds vs. sun.  The clouds won after a good battle and what we saw of the sunset was pretty.  What we saw on the beach and in the water was better.  We watched another Wedding, watch the park police patrol the pier for fishing licences and even watched as he confiscated a couple of fishing poles.  The real show was in the water.  We saw a huge stingray. several mana rays, fish, a dark stingray that Carrie referred to as a "hybrid stingray"; we think it may have been an eagle ray.  We saw schools of fish and a shark.  Now the shark was only about 4 ft long but that is big enough especially when it swam right up to some people standing in about a foot of water.  The huge stingray did the same thing too.  The people had no clue.  The pier was once again a very entertaining place.  When we left the pier we headed to dinner!  I hope Carrie and Philip enjoyed their first day at Panama City.  As for what we are going to do today...we are working on that now!