St. George Island, Apalachicola and the Florida Panhandle

This was our introduction to the Tampa Bay area-
water everywhere!

We left Venice early Monday morning and headed towards Tampa and north to the Panhandle of Florida.  Jim loves oysters, so Apalachicola sounded like a great place to spend the night-and it was!

The lighthouse at St. George Island

We drove the blue highways through the Panhandle of Florida, which was just beautiful, especially on the roads that brought us close to the water.  We arrived in Apalachicola early enough to spend the end of the afternoon on St. George Island.  The Gulf of Mexico and the Apalachicola Bay provide the backdrop for this beautiful island which is home to a gorgeous state park.  The beach is not dog friendly (that's the problem in the states!) so we didn't hang out for long, but took a nice walk along a boardwalk through salt marshes, dunes and pines.

The cutest two guys on the boardwalk

We discovered this wonderful raw bar on our way through the tiny town.  It was everything we had hoped for:  fabulous oysters (according to Jim), an incredible buffalo shrimp wrap for me, local beers, live music and fun people.

Jim could even check in on the game.

We checked into our wonderful dog friendly-not La Quinta for a change-hotel by sunset.  It was a magnificent one, as you can see.  Our room was to the right in this picture, on the water, overlooking the bay bridge.

The oyster fishermen got started early in the morning
right outside our room.

This restaurant is right at our hotel and is known locally as
the best place to eat oysters.  We couldn't have chosen a better
place.  A cold front had moved through the area by late afternoon
which made sitting outside for dinner (with Boo) virtually
impossible.  So, we ordered up food for take out and enjoyed
dinner in our room by the bay.

The Boss Oyster, whose motto is "Shut Up and Shuck"
They supposedly have the only refrigerated oyster boats in the state of Florida.

Boo and I got up at first light and toured the downtown on foot, deciding where we wanted to visit later in the day when things open.  Apalachicola is tiny - it has a population of about 2000.  90% of the state's oyster crop is cultivated here in more than 7,000 acres of oyster beds.  Jim thinks they are the best he ever had.  Wellfleet oysters are right up there but are a distant second (don't tell Uncle Al).

The Grady Market building
From the mid 1800s until the turn of the century, the sponge
industry was very lucrative in this area.  This street was lined
with warehouses that housed and sold the local sponge crop.
This area was once the third largest cotton port in the country.

Local shrimp boats

This fisherman greeted us as we walked along the riverside.

Our room

The hotel had this wonderful space hanging out over the bay.  We had
breakfast here with Boo.  Jim had a Gouda-Gouda Oyster Omelet.  I had
the most amazingly wonderful, fattening maple french toast.  We didn't
eat again for another day!

A tad chilly but wonderful in the sun

What a setting

We were going to spend the night in Ft. Walton Beach or Destin but decided to keep going, as the area seemed so commercial - nice, but not what we were looking for.  Many of the parks did not welcome pets, so-onward!

We stopped for lunch at our first "Road Food"
restaurant- Chez Des Amis in Breaux Bridge, LA.
We were yearning for some real Louisiana cooking
as we drove through this part of the country.
 Our lunch of Gumbo, Crab Cakes and crawfish
etouffee was very good-not great!  Oh, yeah-we
weren't going to eat again, were we!  But we didn't
eat dinner-does that count?

We arrived in the Houston area after dark and spent the night in a very new (and therefore, great) La Quinta outside of town in Humble, TX.