St. George Island, FL 6/14-6/21: "Martini Time"

On 6/14 ~60 Moore family members from IL, OH, MD descended upon the Florida panhandle to St. George Island. 14 of us, including all the Blinn's, stayed in a gorgeous 4 story house, "Martini Time", right on the beach. The rest of the clan had houses next door or smaller condos down the way. The short version of a great week is: sun, fun, family, food, drinks (a lot of drinks). The longer version is: Everyone had a long drive on saturday, so we visited, ordered pizza, tested the water, and went to bed early. ("early" considering the rest of the week's bedtime averaged early morning hours) On Sunday and Monday we soaked in the rays, logged many hours reading, and just rested.












Tuesday was kayaking in the oyster beds of Apalachicola Bay. 20 of us geared up and I gotta say: the guides were impressed with our skills. We pushed them into taking us further out to Goose Island and everyone kept paced with what was a semi-difficult paddle. I can say after a week with the Moores: they don't say uncle. Everyone was going to finish that paddle and no one wants to be the first to bed :)








Bob went golfing with Mark and Dave on Wednesday. Wednesday night Pat organized the now famous Low Country Boil for the whole group and we got a group photo with our Moorefest T-Shirts.



Thursday and Friday were days devoted to doing whatever you want to do, much like the rest of the week. Bob and Tara rode bikes to the state park. True to form, Bob's bike popped a few spokes and was inoperable for half the journey. I don't know what he did in the first 29 years of his life, but his bad karma is unmatched. On Thursday, Megan and I went to Apalachicola for shopping and lunch at Tamara's. ( We shared grouper, fish tacos, and Key Lime pie... very Florida and real good!) We all had fresh fish, shrimp, or scallops every night for dinner provided to us by Doug in his yellow trailer by the beach. Doug became legend when Pat questioned him on fresh fish availability later in the day and he replied, "I sell a lot of fish, Baby!"

Our house was dog-friendly so we had three dogs there (Dee and Daisy the boston terriers and Molly the Yellow Lab). The house was dog-friendly but two of the occupants were explicitly not dog-friendly – which created an interesting dynamic. So they were primarily quarantined. We brought a collapseable dog-bed for dee and put her in it the first night. 90 minutes later she had nearly chewed through the nylon wall. So she spent much of the time chained to the hitch in the carport of the house. Which was sad. However because she apparently thought she was being punished for unspeakable bad behavior, she is now a reformed obedient dog. Whenever she steps out of line, I show her a picture of broken spirit Dee chained to the wall and she falls in line.

All over the island are small ‘ghost crabs’. They are called ghost crabs because they appear anwhere from white to translucent depending on the time of day. They will pinch your toes if you step on them but otherwise live and let live. But the dogs don’t subscribe to that same philosophy. So the last night we caught Dee vs Ghost Crab. This bastard was big and was not backing down. I think he just got tired and went into the gulf to take a rest. Dee had pent up aggression on her side from being tied to a post for a week.