Bailey Collette: Panama City Beach, FL

Over the week of august 8^th – the 15^th, my family along with Austin and my brother’s girlfriend, McKenna, went to Panama City Beach! My family has always gone to Florida during the summer but this was our first time to this beach! This was also the first time that we have taken two cars (yes we drive, no its not that bad). Austin and I drove my car (well Austin drove a lot more than me) and my parents, Alec & McKenna were in the other car.

We stayed at the Aquavista hotel (?) (condos) which was right on the beach! We stayed on the 8^th floor on the corner of the building and had a wrap around balcony! Perfect views of the ocean and beach! Our condo was a 3 bedroom along with 2 pull out couches in the living room. It was a pretty nice condo! Nice enough that my mom booked it again for next year the day we got back haha.

Day 1 Saturday – We got to the beach around lunch time. And just in time to get into a restaurant before the storm came in! We had some absolutely delish wings at Barefoot Bar & Grill. After the storm died down, Austin, Alec, McKenna and I decided to take the scenic route back to the hotel and walk the beach. Back at the condo we got everything unpacked and basically just relaxed for the rest of the night.

While Austin and I were out hunting for koozies, my parents actually got to watch a nest of sea turtles hatch and make their way to the ocean! The video that I’m posting is recorded by my dad.

Day 2 Sunday – I believe this was the day that Alec and Austin met some jelly fish friends (yeah they both got stung but they were fine). We spent the day walking the beach, swimming in the pool and checking out the cool beach houses!

Austin has a hobby of saving half dead fish on the beach ;)

Day 3 Monday – This day Alec, McKenna, Austin & myself went on a dolphin jet ski tour! It was so much fun and we actually got to see quite a few dolphin and get pretty close to them. The whole tour had about 8-10 jet skis and two leaders. We stayed with the leaders the whole time but they let us go fast and have some fun! There was also a part of the tour where we pulled our skis up onto an island and walk out into the water. McKenna and I decided to stay on the sand for the most part for this. While everyone was in the water we had a little visit from a shark, disappointed that I didn’t see it.

Day 4 & 5 Tuesday and Wednesday: Both of these days we basically just enjoyed relaxing on the beach, walking to the pier and going out to dinner! One night when we went to the pier there were a group of men fishing for sharks which was really cool! They didn't catch anything while we were there but it was really neat to see how crazy big and strong all of their equipment had to be! The same night as the sharks, we decided to dry Nitrofreeze Ice Cream!

Alec & McKenna

Mom & Dad

Day 6 Thursday: Today we decided to rent some tubes and float down a river. I learned Florida rivers are WAY more cleaner than rivers in Illinois, you could see all the way to the bottom for majority of the 4 hour ride. It was pretty fun but 4 hours was a little long I think hah. But the water was the perfect temp for how hot it was out! We all got a little sunburned but thats okay. We found some rope swings along the way but Alec and Austin were the only ones willing to swing off them. We got in at one point of the river and a bus came and dropped off our tubes, then we floated, then the bus was there to pick us all back up to take us back to our car! Crazy that floating for 4 miles took a solid 4 hours