So after our much eventful night stay in Destin, we checked out of our hotel room (the 3rd one we got!) and were completely compensated for our room charges based on our horrible experiences. In fact, they ended up crediting us back more than what we paid to reserve the room! Ha.
Anyway, so we checked out, but I wanted to drive into Destin some more in the morning. We had really stayed on the outskirts and yet to 'arrive' in Destin city limits actually. So instead of heading back the way we came, we continued driving on this little peninsula. It continued to be a beautiful beautiful town. Even the stores and malls and restaurants were eloquent. We decided to stop at one little beach store and gather some souvenirs. And lo and behold, in the back of the store was a girl that did hair braiding! :)
I had always said if we found a place that did this corn row type of braiding I would SO get the girls' hair done. I've had mine done before and not only is it super cute, it also stays so long and that means weeks of not fixing hair! So I insisted and we let the girl braid both Brenna and Brooke's hair. Brenna complained none, sitting there getting her hair braided like Rapunzel (or so she says ;). She had my phone to watch a show with and was super content.
Brooke was not as happy about it, as she is much more tender headed so any little tug and apparently it was "too tight". Blah. But she managed...
And in the end, they both had super cute beach braided hair!
It took about 45 minutes for each one...cuz I know some will ask. And they both were great sitting still for it and all. Places I have been in Mexico have those girls that do them a lot quicker though somehow! Also, it lasted a full 2 weeks and then some. Brenna's actually stayed much nicer than Brooke's. Maybe b/c Brenna's hair is finer? I don't know. But, with both girls, really the only reason they HAD to come out was because the rubber bands were breaking. We washed their hair (just not scrubbing the braids) and everything with them in. I repaired the rubber bands a couple of times with spare rubber bands, but after a couple weeks, we just decided it was time to take them out.
Anyway, because it took so long getting braids, we drove to the end of the island and were just going to stop somewhere quick for lunch. We wanted to make New Orleans by mid-late afternoon. Instead, Brad saw a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co and he insisted he wanted to eat there and that was his only regret from California....not eating at Bubba Gump Shrimp. So ok. We did.
They have these neat little signs made out of license plates up for when you want the waitress, you flip it to "Stop Forrest Stop!" and when you are fine and don't need anything you leave it on "Run Forrest Run!" Pretty cute idea I thought.
Anyway, the food was good, the service was slow. We all had shrimp (of course!)...just different varieties. I do love how the girls' kids meals were served in a cute little boat.
Brad had a sampler platter of all the different kind of shrimp that he claimed was good. And I had just plain ol' fried shrimp, which was also yummy...and cleverly served on a platter made out of "newspaper headlines". :)
As I said, the service was slow. Not bad. They were just sloooooow. So we left Destin much later than anticipated. We got to the restaurant just after 1 and it was nearly 3pm when we got out of there! Luckily, we did not have to drive all the way to the first side of Destin to get out of town. There was a huge bridge (there's lots of huge bridges on this trip) that took you from Destin into Fort Walton and then Fort Walton is a little drive (with an Air Force base that Brad liked to oogle at :P) and from Fort Walton, we drove into Pensacola and we were right back on track, headed out of Florida. The girls napped on the way to New Orleans. It was a 4 hr drive (amazing that it takes only 4 hrs to drive across three states, but it takes 8 to drive across the panhandle of Florida!)..they napped the first half and watched a movie the second half. And we ended up in New Orleans after 7pm. Which was a bit disappointing..to not be able to spend any amount of time roaming the streets of the French Quarter...but eh. Whatever. Destin was fun!
It was also raining when we got in to town, so it wouldn't have made for a very fun walking trip anyway. And we still had the morning. We settled for eating in our hotel, which was in the French Quarter. We got a "normal" priced room (for us) around $100/night at the Country Inn and Suites. It was ok. But the pool advertised was actually more of an enlarged bath tub. Seriously. I wish (in hindsight) I had taken a picture to share. It was that amusing to both Brad and I..the size of the pool. And the rooms were nice and spacious, but also kind of old and had a dirty feel. (much like New Orleans I suppose) But the beds slept fine and we woke up the next day ready to drive home.... or not ;(
No comments:
Post a Comment