Grayton Beach State Park, Santa Rosa Beach, Florida
“Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.” ~ Genesis 37:19-20 How many sins do you see in this quote? Their willingness to commit fratricide? Their willingness to lie? And not just lie, but develop a detailed lie? Hatred? Pride? How far are you willing to go to remove a problem in your life? Surely not murder, but lying? Have you allowed pride and/or hatred take the reins of your life? I know there’ve been times in my life when I have, but if you confess your sin, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness ~ I John 1:9 Praise God for His Love and Forgiveness!
As it turned out, we didn’t do a whole lot worth noting for the next few days, so I combined three.
Thursday, the 6th was laundry day. Blaine found us a nice place about 10-15 minutes away, called Klean Wash. Well, it certainly should be nice; the prices were 2-3 times what we’ve paid at other laundromats! We almost coulda gone out and bought new stuff for what we spent at this place. Sheesh!
I would’ve, but there were quite a few people.
While I laundered, Blaine was out shopping for stuff he needed to finish his TV stuff.
Back home, the uninteresting tale (to you) of Blaine vs the electronic stuff continued, but he finally got everything completed to his liking, and in addition, tried to replace an electrical plug that was coming loose. For some reason, only an electrician would understand, he was unable to do that today. He did comment under his breath once that the wiring in our coach is scary. That’s what happens when you’re a professional and know better!
Meanwhile, once I put laundry away, I sat on the bed (out of his way) and did blogging stuff. It always seems like he works harder than me…
Friday, the 7th
It was much cooler today than yesterday – by about 10⁰. But it was a cloudless sky all day, so we bundled up just a bit, rode our bikes over to the State Park beach access, and walked up and down the flat, virtually empty beach alongside the small, but beautiful waves of Caribbean blue and green.
This probably came from the Naval Base in Pensacola. Blaine says it’s a VTOL – Vertical Take Off and Landing plane. 
It was pretty cool to see, and not very loud.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much wind today, so they had a difficult time keeping them aloft.
It’s what remains of a Portuguese Man O’ War. No tentacles, no fin, no color.
Just a sac of air that popped very loudly when Blaine squeezed it.
The rest of the day was spent doing stuff you wouldn’t care about – you know, those pesky domestic chores that need doing ….
But this evening, we intended to thoroughly enjoy a Paella dinner from the Great Southern Café. Yes, this is the same place we ate at two nights ago. They have a Friday special where, at any time until Thursday afternoon, you can pre-order their paella and come pick it up outside. Dinner was so good on Wednesday, we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to try it!
Paella (pie-A-uh) is a Spanish rice dish that also includes saffron, chicken, (rabbit if you’re going to be true to its origins), shrimp and mussels cooked in a large shallow pan. It is originally from the city of Valencia, Spain. While it is commonly viewed by non-Spaniards as Spain’s national dish, Spaniards almost unanimously consider it to be a dish from the Valencian region. Valencians, in turn, regard paella as one of their identifying symbols. True paella never has chorizo sausage in it (or any other sausage) because sausage overpowers the delicate taste of the saffron and seafood.
Ours had chorizo in it, though. And several other sausages as well. And what looked to be pepper, cayenne and paprika.
And as good as our dinner was from there on Wednesday, the Paella was nearly inedible! It was soooo spicy, we could barely eat it! Most likely would’ve pitched it if it hadn’t cost us $20 each. We ate like we hadn’t had a meal in months, just to get it over with. We basically paid for rice and sausage. Mostly, the thing was so spicy we couldn’t even taste it. Think Louisiana’s jambalaya on steroids! We didn’t do much chewing. I cut off a large slice of a baguette we’d picked up at the grocery store and slathered butter on it to try to help us with the heat. And we drank a lot of cold water and iced tea. AND, there was one other issue. When we went to pick up our order, I discovered that they were actually cooking it outside – – it was 49⁰. The designated pick-up time was 5-6pm. We arrived at 5:15. Why is all this important? Because our order was already bagged up and waiting on the table for us! Sitting in an open bag! Did I mention it was 49⁰? And dark? I asked if it was hot, and was told that they’d just dished it up. I rushed back to the Jeep, wrapped a heavy moving quilt around it and we drove the few minutes back home, but it was already close to room temperature and had to be microwaved.
I wrote a review on TripAdvisor, which I rarely do because I have a blog to work on. In it, I praised them for Wednesday night’s dinner and admonished them for Friday’s. Hopefully they’ll read it and fix the problem, or write a “heat” warning for their website.
Many years ago, I had a recipe for paella, although I never made it. Seafood’s expensive when you’re raising boys who like to eat you out of house and home (I’m including Blaine in that. 😊), and I know of no place to purchase rabbit, plus there are several other “special” ingredients, which would’ve added to the expense.
The moral of the story? In the future, make sure those making paella know what it is and how to make it. 😊
Saturday, the 8th
Another day at the beach. It warmed up some from yesterday, but not a lot. We biked roughly two miles over to another public beach access point, then, leaving our shoes behind, we walked and walked and walked – about 7-8 miles all told! On the fine sugary sand. Very enjoyable!
And a-waaaay we go! 
Almost there!
Never seen one of those before!
more like what we’re used to from our family vacation days at Holden Beach, North Carolina.
There’ll be no crossing today.
It was wide and deep, and walking on the sand here was like quicksand!
Never! We found that very unusual!
we’ve seen in all of our beach walks!
Until Blaine discovered that he’d bruised the pads of his feet from walking in sand for so long, and it’s swollen quite a bit, making it hard for him to walk now. Yeeouch!!!
His determination took over at dinner time, and he went out and grilled our venison burgers, while I made homemade fries in our air-fryer. The venison came from our oldest son, Chris. Thanks, Chris! It was much better than we expected! Still wouldn’t trade it for beef though. 😊
That’s Blaine’s.
Did you guess correctly? : )