Tuesday Sunshine Cindy and I stayed home but the planning for the party continued. She made a run to Publix to buy beer for the weekend. About 5 cases of beer later we were well stocked. The banners arrived on Tuesday and they looked great. Sunshine Cindy is the committee chairperson and she was working on the details into the evening.
Wednesday was our third anniversary. We decided that we would go out to a nice dinner after the party was completed so we stayed home, had a few cocktails on the porch and looked at the event tee shirts that were delivered that afternoon. They turned out great except for misspelling “Camero” for Jeff and the Camaro’s. Oh well, it is now a collector’s item!
Thursday was the last day we had to get all the final details in order. I stopped at Landshark Pizza on the way home from work and got a pizza to bring home. While at Landshark I had a chance to chat with B for a while. I have not seen B in several weeks. Paige was working the bar. It was a relaxing time before the craziness that was coming.
Friday morning Sunshine Cindy and I went to Asiago Skillet for breakfast. We saw Brian and Sue in the parking lot. They recommended we get the King Biscuit platter. Sunshine Cindy did and it was awesome. A huge biscuit covered in sausage gravy, eggs, bacon and ham. Wow, that was good. I had breakfast burritos that were just as good. Asiago is our favorite breakfast place. After breakfast we stopped and got 6 bags of ice. We have two big coolers that we were bringing on Saturday so we needed all that ice.
After we got back home Sunshine Cindy got a call that a new pair of prescription sunglasses we ordered for her was in. So off to Fort Walton Beach we went to get them. By the time we got home it was almost time to head to Crab Island Cantina for our friend Jim Asbell’s show. This was being billed as a pre-party for the main event on Saturday. We took Uber and got to the Cantina about an hour before he was to go on. Jim was already there setting up on the outside stage.
The Cantina staff took great care of us. Al was our server. We ended up with over 50 people and Al was on top of things for us. To make things easier we had Al find a bucket so we could keep our beers cold and save him from making too trips back and forth. Jim did a great show as usual. Many folks that were just there hanging out stayed and enjoyed the music. If you ever get a chance to see Jim live you need to do it!
After he was done several of us helped him load up. A group had gone to Landshark so we walked down there. We got to give Jim a tour of the harbor area. He had no idea there was so much to do down along the docks. At Landshark Mike, Brodie, Judie, Kelly, Leigh, Keith and the three of us sat around the bar. We had some food and enjoyed some good conversation. But we had to be up early on Saturday so we called it quits about 10:30 and got Uber back home.
By 8 am Sunshine Cindy and I were at the Mattie Kelly Cultural Arts Village starting to get set up. Stephanie was already there and the rest of the committee was showing up right behind us. By the time the tailgate part of the party got started everything was ready to go. We used the Parrot Head float as a stage in the field for the tailgating with a generator for power. That worked perfectly. At noon the party moved into the main grounds.
Jeff and the Camaro’s opened the show. Jeff did his usual fun show. He had people dancing in the grass. BT Turner followed and he entertained everyone with his fun and quirky songs. Our headliner was Jerry Diaz and Hanna’s Reef from Texas. We had a glitch with the power as the breakers kept popping. We determined there was a problem with the breakers on the stage. We remedied that by using the generator that was used in the parking lot. The show went on!
It was a hot and humid day. By late afternoon we started to get some cloud cover. There was a 50% chance of rain but we got lucky. It didn’t start to rain until we had the last of the cleanup done and everyone had long gone home. Saturday night we had hours of thunderstorms blow through with strong lightning and heavy rain. We are fortunate it held off for us.
Sunday morning I rode back to the venue to drop off a key and make one last pass to be sure we didn’t leave anything behind. We had volunteer help from our charity, “Children in Crisis” help clean up and they did a great job. We really needed that help after being out there all day. We should be donating a nice check to them soon from the proceeds of the party!
Sunday afternoon Sunshine Cindy and I decided to head to McGuire’s for our anniversary dinner. We had a nice varied meal. I first got sushi and Sunshine Cindy got a Ruben egg roll appetizer. They were both yummy. We had to have the Senate Bean Soup. You have to have it for just 18 cents! We then got one of their burgers to split. These things are like ¾ of a pound of meat. We had to bring a fourth of it home.
After eating we took a drive around old town Destin. Then when we got back home we sat on our front porch to close out the weekend. We were tired from the all the activities we did during the week but also satisfied that we were part of a successful event that folks enjoyed while we raised money for a worthy charity.
I think this week will not be quite so busy. But the summer tourist season kicks off this weekend so we have about 11 weeks of crazy traffic and congestion to look forward to. Have a great Memorial holiday. See ya next Monday.
Destin Steve
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