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Driving through the Florida Panhandle on our quest for the Flora-Bama and the Deep South

After leaving Tallahassee, it was back to the beach for us!  Before checking in to our hotel in Panama City Beach on Sunday night, we strolled around the nearby lovely, quaint planned community of Seaside, FL, where there are lots of beautiful Atlantic seacoast-style beach "cottages," many with huge screened porches.  Caroline has decided she wants to move here (well, for today anyway)! 

We stayed in a beachfront Quality Inn in Panama City Beach with a full-ocean view balcony for a mere $44!  It's a little early in the season for them, being so far north and PC has more rooms than they know what to do with (except during Spring Break, maybe), hence the deal (this was not even Priceline or Hotwire), but the weather was still pleasant so don't feel bad for us (ha ha).  After a long walk on the windy, soft, white sand beach (read really-hard-to-walk-on-beach) we really enjoyed relaxing with Panama City-style drinks (see photos) on the balcony and watching the sun set.  It's what we do now.  We can't complain.

Monday morning was absolutely gorgeous, so we decided to spend it in an internet cafe called Hava Java (what's with all the funny names & puns that coffee shops and hair salons feel the need to have?).  It was time to get serious about booking a room in New Orleans so we could make sure we'd be able to get something nice before all the good rooms got swooped up.  We decided we'd splurge a little in New Orleans and try to get a cool room.  After the first hour and a half of looking at inns, we weren't impressed.  It seems like they have to be out there, I mean, this is New Orleans, but we just couldn't seem to figure it out!  Eventually we found a few cool places owned by The Melrose Group, and narrowed our choices further by deciding that we needed a balcony room in the French Quarter.  We'll be staying at the Hotel Royal, but are a little nervous about our room.  All the good ones were booked, so the hotel clerk (from Petoskey, MI, incidentally) put us in a room that hasn't been renovated, but is "funky". Hmmm, we shall see.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on a somewhat tedious drive toward Mobile via the Gulf coast.  Our interim destination was the famous (in Scott's family at least) Florabama, a bar/roadhouse/seafood dive restaurant on Gulf right at the Florida & Alabama border (but you probably guessed that).  We really wanted to get some fresh crawfish,  The most interesting part of the trip was seeing the utter devastation caused by last year's hurricanes.  We had already driven much of the Florida coast, both Atlantic and Gulf side, including the Keys, but hadn't seen anything even close to the wreckage that is Pensacola.  Driving through, especially by the coast, it seemed less than half of the businesses are open at all, and many that are open are doing business with wood boards where there should be windows and blue plastic tarp roofs.  Panama City may have just been quicker to clean up, as there were at least a dozen new high rises in progress on the beach (we imagined that the former hotels had been condemned).  There was plenty of new construction in Pensacola too, but soo many more homes, high rises and businesses were obliterated, and this was five months after the hurricane!  Unfortunately, the Florabama was closed on Mondays & Tuesdays, but seeing it, we couldn't believe they could possibly be open at all!  And they are only open until "6ish" the rest of the week, which makes one wonder if they have lighting yet.  We've posted some photos of the Florabama for your amazement.

Three hours and one Valentine's dinner later, we made it to Mobile, where we shall reside in the Comfort Suites for two nights while taking a look around this historic city by the bay.