~ A Time Remembered ~

Second daughter and I traveled back in time, sort of.  We used to live in this southern Gulf Coast town.  My children's paternal grandparents were of the pioneer stock that settled this town.  Back in the day this land was desolate and disconnected from the mainland town.   A boat was needed to reach this beach.  The land was undeveloped, full of mosquito's and sand spurs and unappealing in general.  No one thought much of the beach, except for fishing and turtles.  The land was bought cheap and lost for taxes.  Very sad.

Second daughter calls this her homeland.  Her memories are all good.  She, her older sister and two year old brother, roamed all over this town.  It was a safe place to live.  They often packed a picnic lunch, spending the day playing, and visited the children's park or Indian Mound Park.  

Her brother is buried in this town.  We visited the cemetery, pulled weeds, remembered his sweet self, and cried.

~ JVB son and brother ~

We ate lunch on the beach at a new place called "Flounders", shown in the two bottom pictures. Fried grouper sandwich, french fries, escargot and iced tea.   Good food, spectacular weather and surroundings, gave us pause to feel blessed.  (I rotated the bottom picture and saved, it shows it correctly, but when brought in here it went sideways again.  Whatever. :))

The beach was packed with tourists and I didn't want to fight the crowd, trying to find a bare spot with no people, to take a few good beach shots.  I'll come again another day.  I did take a few "shell shots", one of which I show you above. 

The day was pure magic, cool spring blue sky sunshine Florida beauty.

Long after we returned home, we could not get the day out of our minds, it was so wonderful it refused to leave.

Blessings and Happy wishes are extended toward you all!