Pensacola goodness.

I needed that. Although I'd been on "vacation" earlier this summer on my trip to Thailand, it was only a vacation from work, not a vacation from doing stuff. I took advantage this past weekend to go down to sunny Florida and hit the beach. A couple months ago, I had been talking with my friend Alan, and we both said it'd be fun to go to the beach. We picked a weekend we were both free (which didn't happen until 2 months later), and began some planning. It turned out that it was us and 6 others (Julia, Jaime, Bonnie, Nick, Adam and Matthew) - a total of 8 people from Atlanta, and we decided to go down to Pensacola.

Many times when events happen in Atlanta, we host out-of-towners in our homes, and a few times, Phillip and Ashley from Navarre (near Pensacola) FL had stayed at my house. They kept offering that I should come down and visit and they'd take me to the beach, so I figured I'd take them up on it. They were awesome and lived up to and then exceeded all our expectations.

Our car arrived on Friday evening, and we did the required meal at McGuire's Irish Pub - where there was a bagpiper, 18 cent bean soup, and cheap drinks. We started off the weekend having fun there, and it did not stop until we went to sleep at our own homes after arriving back in Atlanta. From the pub, we went to the Pensacola weekly swing dance. I did not start dancing until after the swing craze in the late 90's, but Nick was around then, and he said being at this dance was like going back in time. First off, the average age was much younger than our dances. Our dances consist of mostly 20's & 30's young professionals and students. However, the people attending this dance seemed to mostly be in high school with a spattering of college/older people around. After honing and refining our music tastes in Atlanta to what we thing is the greatest types of music to dance to, our ears bled with the rockabilly, neo-swing music they played at the dance. Ashley and the other few P-cola lindy hop dancers that were there kept apologizing for the music and the other dancers, but to us, it was quite the experience! The energy of these kids was amazing, and it was my first time being on a social dance floor where aerials were permitted! At 10:30 on the mark, there was a jam circle. Most cities form impromptu jam-circles when there's a pretty fast song on, someone starts clapping, and immediately, a circle forms, and couples trade off the spotlight showing their best moves. While this circle wasn't impromptu, it certainly had everyone showing their best moves. The kids would go in and trade of showing their best aerials and jumps, and then leave the middle. I'd never seen so many aerials in one night. A few of us even went into the middle of the circle, but it was a far cry from the showy aerials they were doing. By the end of the night, we were exhausted. We headed back to P&A's house to go to sleep, but we were so riled up, we ended up talking until 3 am.

In the morning we got up after Matthew had already returned from a 15 mile run. Alan and I went out for a 3 mile run, but it was not comparable to matt's run - however it was much hotter outside at that point. After everyone was up and dressed, and alan had made a wal-mart run to get enough gatorade and water to last the weekend, we headed to the beach. We could not have asked for a more gorgeous day on the beach. The water was beautifully clear, the weather was warm, there was a nice breeze, and we were with awesome people. Other than Phillip and Ashley, and the 8 of us from Atlanta, we were joined by Becca, Hilary and Leslie - 3 of the pensacola dancers. We spent the whole afternoon out on the beach, and Phillip gave us surfing lessons. Nick, Jaime and I all tried our hand at surfing for the first time and had a blast. We spent the rest of the time that day swimming, throwing the frisbee, playing paddle ball, sitting on the sand, and taking walks. It was sad to leave the beach that day, but at least we had another day to return!

We got back to the house to shower and get ready to go out for the evening. Alan wanted to make us promise that if we went out dancing, that none of us would Lindy hop. Booty dancing only. Of course, no one promised. Adam and others feasted on ice cream, M&Ms and Julia's amazing homemade pecan pie - dessert before dinner. We hit up Cocodries - a restaurant on the beach for dinner, and Bonnie and I shared a dish. I think a lot of people shared since the dished were pretty big! We surprised Alan and Adam with some man-killer cupcakes for dessert since Alan's birthday was in 2 days, and Adam's in a week.

Then it was time to hit the town. We drove to Pensacola, and Matt was already falling asleep. After meeting up with the 3 p-cola girls again, we went to flounders and most of us each got a "Diesel Fuel". Matt woke up and joined the party for the rest of the evening. This is basically a mixed drink in a huge jar, and you get to keep the jar, but the drink is only $8. In Atlanta, I would guess a drink like that'd be around $20. minimum. We couldn't seem to find a place on the boardwalk that we really liked, so we went from bar to bar, each for a short amount of time. We ended the night at Bamboo Willies, which I think we agreed had the best music that was fun to dance to. The bars were getting ready to shut down and so were we. Time to head home.

The next day, Nick and Bonnie had to leave early, but the rest of us hit the beach again. Phillip used the second day to teach the boys how to work the kite so that one day they could go kite surfing. After getting over the fact that they had to all hold onto each other, they made it sound "cool" by calling it the "diamond formation", and they were out on the water at least an hour practicing. Jaime gave it a try too, and the kite literally pulled her out of the water since she was so light!

We went back around 3:00 to have a delicious homemade spaghetti lunch cooked by Ashley, and then after showering, packing, and saying our goodbyes, headed home. The trip that should've been uneventful ended up taking longer than expected, and included some interesting conversation, a malfunctioning door, and a cracked windshield. We finally made it to Alan's house around midnight, and wished him a happy birthday before all heading home to crash into bed.

Thanks to everyone that made this weekend so amazing! we'll call this the first ANNUAL Pensacola Beach vacation trip. Oh, and if you want to see photos, Most of them are posted here, and there are some on Facebook