August 21, 2020 Panama City Beach, FL (Day 2)

After a lot of discussion and careful consideration, we decided to cut our vacation short by 5 days due to Hurricane Laura. We decided it was best to go home and deal with the hurricane from there. There is no record of 2 hurricanes existing in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time. There is a time when 2 hurricanes or tropical storms occupied the same space together and that was back in 1933. 2020 is turning out to be one heck of a year in more ways than one. We decided to take a drive down Thomas Dr./Beach Blvd/Hwy. 98 . St. Andrews State Park is a dead end in one direction, but we went in the other direction . The streets look so deserted since the last time we were here in May. We were told since the kids went back to school this week, that it’s been a ghost town…and it was.

We saw some familiar landmarks like Ripleys Believe It Or Not and Wonderworks.

Then of course, there’s the Vomatron bungee jump.

We drove all the way down to Shuckums.

We had eaten there when we were here in May and Bob wanted to go back for their delicious raw oysters.

They were serious about their COVID precautions, so we stopped in. Inside there are hundreds of dollar bills hanging from the ceiling and plastered on the walls.

I love their slogan. We shuckum. You suck um!

Bob slurped a dozen oysters while I had my favorite mozzarella cheese sticks.

Heading back, we made one last stop at City Pier.

There were a few people enjoying the beach, but it wasn’t very crowded even with the calm waters.

It’s hard to believe Panama City Beach could be hit again by the hurricane after still seeing the remains of the damage from the last one that devastated Mexico Beach located just a few miles down the road not long ago. Damage was still visible in places. We came back to the campground and got our minds geared up for leaving tomorrow. No sense in prolonging the inevitable . The house, yard, boat, and car were all prepped for hurricane season before we left, so there isn’t much to do once we get home. but we’ll be ready to evacuate, if necessary. We sat outside with Auggie and watched TV outside in the campsite. Auggie is fine tuning his senses for gecko-hunting when he gets home. It was kind of cloudy with bits of sunshine that peeked out every now and then. The sky looked dark to the south where the radar showed we might be getting some rain. There was a nice breeze blowing and the temp was a pleasant 84. We sat outside until the wind picked up and it started to rain lightly. We moved inside and had dinner before taking our walk. We have a drive of 231 miles tomorrow to Lake City. Then it’s home on Sunday.