Back to canals and smooth water

Nov 16-17 2017

     On Thursday, we made a short run to Pensacola and docked close to the historic downtown.  I headed out for a walk with instructions for John to meet me at a well recommended Tapas restaurant, Global Grille when it opened at 5 pm .  There was a section of old, either restored or rebuilt houses, a church and some archeological discoveries of the old Spanish and then British forts that had been in the area.  It didn’t look like Pensacola had been hurt much by hurricanes and a lot of the old buildings remained and were being repurposed as offices, shops and art galleries.  One gallery had some nice local art, including the work of an icon painter that I really liked.  The original of my favorite, a nativity scene was not available fortunately, but a nice card was so I made do with that.  The restaurant was even better than advertised with entre size portions of the tapas we ordered including Lamb lollipops, tempura asparagus, Brussel sprouts, a spicy tuna with wontons that was more like a tartare than sashimi.   Great meal and friendly propirietor.  And left overs to boot.

And glad to be back

All along our trip cities have been decorating mascots.  This is Pensacola's version

   Friday the only place to stop in our cruising range was a really fancy resort Sandestin Baytowne Marina with four golf courses, a Broadmoor type hotel, condos and shopping village with lots of Grandma type stores and restaurants.   A good boardwalk for walking through the swamp gave me some exercise but the weather was turning bad, so I couldn’t talk John into staying and playing golf since we had to meet his cousin Terri and her husband Tom Floor in Panama City for dinner Sunday.  It did look like a good place to bring the family.