12 In Travel

Our Seaside Honeymoon

This is one of my favorite photos, and I have it on my desk now!

Long before the weather warmed up around here this week, my head and my heart have been in Seaside dreaming of staying in our adorable honeymoon cottage again (and frequently saying “we should go back to Seaside and stay in our adorable honeymoon cottage again”). But my Seaside cravings reached new heights this week, as this is the week we were there one year ago!

It was the most low-key trip possible (after the least low-key wedding possible), and we really loved it that way. It was a true getaway. I didn’t take a ton of photos (for me), and I have never shared them, so feast your eyes on these never-before-seen, not-terribly-great images of our little paradise! If I can’t go back this week, this is the next best thing.

So let’s just get this out of the way first. If you’ve never been there, you should know that Seaside is the most darling little town possible. It’s filled with pastel homes with the families’ names and hometowns painted on their white picket fences, children riding bikes, and vintage food trucks. It’s just impossibly charming. So much so that honestly it’s a little creepy at first (or maybe that’s just because it’s the setting of The Truman Show). You kind of just have to embrace the whimsy, think “yes, I am in a 1950s beach town where all the houses match and there are no chain restaurants of any kind,” and love every minute of it.

This is Will, ~~drinking the Kool-aid~~ embracing the whimsy.

Secondly, a little travel story. After our wedding came within an inch of its life due to snow, we turned to concern about flights making it to Florida for the same reason. Our flight had a connection through Nashville, which we knew would shut down at the first sign of powder. We tried to change our flights to no avail (the options were ONE of us could go, or we could miss three days of our trip) and went to the airport at 6:00am for our scheduled flight. I was completely incredulous that we were going to leave all the way until we started taxiing. Of course, as soon as I breathed a sigh of relief, the captain came on to say sorry, Nashville is shut down, this flight is canceled. I knew it!

We were about the second people in line at the desk, and as luck would have it, the plane was going to Florida! It wasn’t the right Florida airport, but we said we’d take it and rent a car. That was when we overheard them telling a college girl that that was an option for her as well. She said she was going to Rosemary Beach and didn’t know how she would get there. She was very flustered and started asking how, exactly, one rents a car. Well, we looked at each other, looked at her, and knew we were going to be a party of three.

So we took the flight, which had about 5 people on it, included free drinks and pizza, and was one of my most memorable Southwest experiences. When we got to FL, we rented a car with our new friend Susan and drove to Panama City Beach airport (chatting all the way) where her very nervous boyfriend met us to pick her up. It seems he was really worried about her hitchhiking with some strange couple, but as soon as he saw us you could tell how relieved he was. We’re about as harmless-looking as they come!

Our Beachfront Cottage

Our honeymoon cottage was perfection. There are ten of them in a row, “inspired by Thomas Jefferson as he built Monticello,” whatever that means. We had our own bikes waiting outside, a hammock on our balcony, our own patio hot tub below the balcony, and beach chairs and umbrellas set up for us everyday with our names on them.

So peaceful, right? Sunburst took care of everything for us, even making reservations and offering to do our grocery shopping if we wanted. It was so lovely.

I love the nautical look of the wood paneling and bare bulb lighting.

When we got there, there was a table of surcees and swag set up for us, complete with a cooler, a beach bag, mugs, fresh flowers, etc. The bag of Terra Sweets and Apples chips waiting for us actually started a fairly legendary addiction. (In that I may or may not have ordered an industrial-sized box of thirty-something full-sized bags when I couldn’t find them in grocery stores.)

We had a wood-burning stove, plenty of fresh flowers, and the comfiest couch. We actually had a lot of fun going to the grocery store first thing to stock up on food and such. We were SET for a week of schedule-free life.

Fun Things we Did!

We ended up riding our bikes a lot! The neighborhood is just so cute, and there were lots of bike trails along the beach. I had forgotten how much fun bikes are (when ridden at a leisurely pace).

We explored the town and all the great shops and restaurants, of course. We taught ourselves a new card game, did a lot of preppy people watching, got a fire going in our wood-burning stove, and finally watched Gone Girl (set in Cape Girardeau) to look for my family friends among the extras. And we love, love, loved our hammock.

The Food!

He must have really wanted that key lime pie.

We also had some wonderful food! We had a lovely dinner (where my thoughtful brother sent us champagne) at V Seagrove.

Aaah, Seaside sunset. Take me back!

Naturally, we spent a lot of time at Bud and Alley’s (see all of the above). We also loved Cafe Thirty-A, and of course, Great Southern Cafe and all the food trucks!