Mountains of Dreams is HERE!

The exciting sequel to Sea of Dreams...

This isn’t your mama’s world.

Once the world was normal.  The day after the change, there were new creatures galore and nearly every human had vanished.  The survivors gathered together to make a new society and Sophie, a seventeen-year-old from Oregon, does her best to fit in.  Desperate to find a reason for living, she travels east to Washington, D.C. to meet with the new President of the U.S.A. and finds that existing and living are two very different things.  The old world hasn’t really been left behind and human treachery continues to threaten their existence.

 

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Part II of Sand in my Pantsies OR How I HAD to Caption More Photographs!

Went to Pensacola Beach.  Forgot my camera.  Did have my droid.  We did swim.  A lot, but I didn't take the droid on the beach so all the pix are from sightseeing and eating of the delicious shrimpness.

So we went to Fort Pickens, which is
an old fort way out on the peninsula that dates
from 1800-something or other.
A Civil War battle was fought here.
Also Geronimo was kept here as a prisoner.
We looked at stuff and went ooh-ahh.
Also we tap danced around the
gazillion ants that live here.

Oddly enough we saw giant frigging mushrooms
at Fort Pickens.  GIANT, frigging
mushrooms.  These could have been aliens
from Planet Shitaki.
I tried to get Cressy to put her hand in there
for size comparison but she went eww
and ran away.
Ants might have been attempting to eat her
ankles.
(Seriously, a lot of ants.  I don't think
they realized they could eat the mushrooms.)

HIM with the big weapon.
(I know.  I posted it on Facebook, too.  I couldn't
help myself.)

We didn't spend ALL of our time at
Fort Pickens, but based on photographs, it
seems like it.
Cressy would not get inside the cannon.  Plus
there was a sign that said no climbing
on the cannons.

See.
Keep off gun.
They forgot "the".
I'm a writer so I can
criticize someone else's grammar.
People do it to me ALL the time.

This is one of the tunnels at Fort Pickens.
I like this picture.
You can't actually stay still too
long at Fort Pickens or
the ants will carry you away.

HIM and Cressy, admiring the way
their feet were off the ground.
Man, this was a hot and sweaty place.
With man-eating ants and giant, frigging
mushrooms.  It also had
park rangers who hid inside their
air-conditioned offices and peered
at you suspiciously through the window.

But hey, here was a place that was kind of
cool.  No ants either.
This is where the troops
keep the powder.  One wing was
all blown up because apparently
someone had been smoking where
they weren't supposed to be smoking.
Or maybe the ants did it.
Hell, it could have been the mushrooms.

Here's where I was wishing I was.
With the Kahlua gods.
Anyway...

I had Cressy act out my feelings of
internment.
Also Geronimo might have been
locked up here.
There was probably a sign that said
where he was really locked up but
I was too busy doing the
avoid-the-ants dance to
read all the signs there.

This is where Cressy really wanted to
be.  No, really she wanted to be
at the pool.
See, she still has the concentration camp
bracelet on.

We stopped to eat lunch at Crabs.
Also to buy stuff at Crabs.
HIM had to wear his reading glasses
over his sunglasses, reminding
me how sexy he really is.
Hubba, hubba.

After lunch was more sand in the pantsies.
(Not an actually picture from Pensacola Beach
but remember I didn't take my droid
on the beach because I like having
my droid non-sea-watered and
non-sandied.)  (I love making up words.)

So we drove home the next day
and saw an old truck in a truck.
This was a plant nursery.
I don't know what it means.
Maybe they grow trucks there.
I made HIM turn around and go
back to take this picture.

And the next day after we got home,
it rained so much the garage flooded.
It's karma, I think.

And thus concludes my photographic odyssey into the idiosyncrasies of our mini-vacation at Pensacola Beach.



Sand in my Pantsies OR How We Went to the Beach OR See Fat Woman Have Fun With Captions

Warning: Snarkiness contained within.  Just sayin'.

Recently our 9 year old daughter begged us to go to the beach, so we caved.  Off to Pensacola Beach we went.  I forgot my camera but hey I had the droid and let the captioning begin.

The view from our room.  So far so good.  No
sand in the pantsies yet.

This is the bracelet the hotel wanted us to wear 24/7
because they apparently have problems
with people coming onto their property
and stealing their pool from their guests.
I wanted to compare this to a tattoo but I didn't want
to tick anyone off.  Seriously I felt like I had been
tagged by the Beach Patrol.  (Like they held us down while we
were tranquilized and tagged out bodies.  It was depressing.)
Also now I have a cheap, nonremovable bracelet
nontan line there.

We did immediately go to the beach and collect a gazillion broken
shells, which I kept throwing away when the kid wasn't
looking but then she caught me and I had to keep them.
However I didn't bring
my phone with me and thus pretty much didn't
actually take many pictures of the beach itself.
But here I am drinking an alcoholic drink and enjoying
its Kahlua goodness while under a fan.
(Yes, there was sand in my pantsies.  In fact, I think
there was sand in places that my proctologist doesn't
know about.)

One of the few times Cressy was actually
at the table.  It turns out that most of the
restaurants in this area have playgrounds
because they know about the families who visit.
The playground is off to the right and that's where
she spent the majority of the time while I drank
my Kahlua infused icy goodness in a shady spot.

And I won't leave out HIM, who was enjoying a beer.
HIM said he didn't have sand in his pantsies but
I think he was lying.
Doesn't this look like a man with
sand in his pantsies?

This restaurant we were at had everything.
Alcohol, fried shrimp, and actual Cuban refugee rafts
we could admire.



See.  The restaurant even had a begging cat.
Let me tell you.  I couldn't sit there and eat while
there was a skinny cat looking at me.
The cat ate more of my shrimp than I did.

Of course, when I went to the bathroom, after
drinking the entirety of my Kaluha goodness,
they had a mark on the wall that showed us
that we should be thinking about
hurricanes.  (Way to make tourists relax!)

I feel like a beach trip blog without an actual beach
shot seems silly, so I put in an old one.  This is Virginia Beach,
but it's the same ocean, right?

The restaurant also had an old truck.  Booze, playgrounds, skinny cats,
deep fried shrimp AND rusting vehicles.
My God, it was like a veritable wonderland.
 

See.  HIM and Cressy were so happy they hugged the boat
on the outside of the restaurant on the way out.
They wanted to take one of those bicycle cabs but I couldn't
do it to the poor skinny bastard.

Coming soon... Part II - More sand in the pantsies and "How did that get sunburned?"