The weather continues to be up and down around here - one day hot, foggy, and muggy; the next sunny, cool, and windy. This week's plein air painters met at Grayton Beach State Park - just a short bike ride for me up the coast along the bike trail. Unfortunately, it was one of those foggy days, so not the best for painting.
I walked out to the beach, but the view was totally white - white sky, white water, and white sand. So instead, I painted the shower at the picnic pavilion. Even doing that little, I had a hard time with my ink pen, because my paper was so limp from all the humidity in the air. The fog was literally condensing on my hair and dripping on the paper.
Some of our group ventured off to paint the sand dunes near the estuaries. One of them took a photo of this warning sign for alligators. Good thing I didn't see it, because if I had, I would have been on my bike headed back to the condos.
The snowbirds had 2 special outings this week. On Thursday, 26 of us went to Salty Sue's for lunch in Panama City. It was a good day to go, because Thursday it rained. Salty Sue's is extremely popular with snowbirds, because they have really cheap lunch specials. I had the fish & chips, and since I wasn't driving, I added a local craft beer. On Saturday night, we had another potluck dinner. This time I brought 2 plates of those little smokies appetizers. This group seems to love meat and desserts. On Monday night, I won the jackpot at bingo again, though I had to split it with another guy who filled his card at the same time.
I'm probably the only person who comes to Florida and spends more time hiking in the state forest than walking on the beach. But the beach is really windy and often cold, while the forest is calmer and warmer.
The only bad part about the forest is that the vegetation is somewhat unstable.
The trees grow very tall very quickly, but don't develop much of a root system in the sand. So when we get a rain storm (which tends to be fairly violent around here), it knocks down trees. One day I went out hiking and had to step over several trees, but someone came along and cut them all up before I'd made a pass back through.
Another nice thing about the forest is that it's starting to look like spring with blooming flower. I think I'm going to be in for a rude awakening when I head back home and everything is brown and frozen.
