Defuniak Springs, Florida

We made the trip to Defuniak again!  Our friends were visiting some family and it is such a quick trip it was an easy decision to go! Since we moved from Texas we don't get to see them as often!  We left after work on Friday night (after we fixed Tim's blown tire on his way home - thankfully we took my car this trip!)

First we went to dinner at Café Nola.  This place was AWESOME!  I had just a basic fried fish dinner, it was great and everyone else said their food was delicious as well.  There is a hotel attached to the Café.  Apparently room 8 is haunted.

There are 12 rooms.  Two adjoining rooms are downstairs and 3-12 are upstairs.

The lobby area from the stairs.

Rooms 1 and 2.

A little café area right outside the entrance lobby of the hotel.

This is taken from the entrance of the restaurant portion of the hotel.

There is also a bar just inside the entrance off to the side.

This table was great and able to fit us all!

Of course we had to get some beignets! They were SO GOOD!!! 

After visiting for a bit we went back to our motel room and hung out!

Woke up the next morning and met at the local Walmart to get lunch stuff for our trip to Vortex Springs!  Cale loves clowning around with Uncle Benny!

Packing away all the cooler stuff!

Drove 20 minutes and made it to Vortex Springs.

They have a cute little dive shop.

Guys putting together our shade tent.

Some pictures of Vortex Springs.  The water stays 68 degrees year round.  It was a little overcast when we first got there so it wasn't too hot, but later in the day the clouds parted and it got pretty hot!

Behind us was another pool area and it had a huge water slide!

Guys didn't bring a speaker so they improvised with a can!

I did some "reading".

They have a camp ground and some cabins.  In one area they had a "motel" style cabin and it looked like it had a lot of college students at it.

They have a kayak and a few canoes available for people to use.  I don't know if they are free for anyone with a wristband or what, but lots of people were using them and I never saw anyone get told to not use it.  So Kennedie pulled a canoe out and went to town.

 Our little area.

I love this picture that Tiffany got of Tim coming off the water slide!

We left around 3:30 and as you can tell he was tuckered out!  We went back to the motel to rest a couple hours and then headed to dinner.

4C BBQ is what we found through our google search. Didn't expect more than a BBQ restaurant.  Boy were we surprised when we got inside!

I guess Saturday nights are Karaoke nights!

They sat us in the middle of the dance floor apparently.  The minute we sat down the regulars hopped up when the music started for the night.  Man they knew EVERY line dance there ever was created!

This family and another family was our original Army family.  The 6 of us all dated at the same time and all 3 of the guys that were in the army together married Alaskan girls!  Tim is the only one of the group left in the army.

Cale NEVER snuggles daddy like this.  So he was soaking it up!  I left and took the kids back to the motel so they could go to sleep.

It was cool to see the brewery we have 20 minutes up the road from our house being served in Florida.

I thought the doors to the bathrooms were cute!

They are building an addition to the BBQ restaurant called the Hero's sports bar.  The owner took us over to have a peek.  It will be really cool when it's all done!

The next morning we headed back home.  We love Defuniak Springs and we always find something new when we go there.  No doubt though that we will be back to Visit 4C BBQ.  That place was a blast for the whole family!!

Fourth of July weekend - Day 3 (final day)

This is our 3rd and final full day in Crystal River, FL.

Woke up and made breakfast again.  I should note - last year our propane in the bottles ran out in the middle of a camp stay.  Thankfully we always had the electric skillet so it wasn't an issue.  This year because our skillet was so old and not as "non stick" as it used to be - we bought a single burner for cooking.  It frees up a lot of space not having to move everything off the cook top every time we want to cook.  We can even cook outside if we wanted to.

Cale woke up and then decided to steal my spot and go right back to sleep!

Our plan was to drive an hour to go to Weeki Wachee state park.  Kennedie is locking the bikes back up.

WOOHOO got to Weeki Wachee just as it opened!

We started to turn into the parking lot and realized the line was ridiculous long!!  So we stopped into this CVS and tried to  come up with a new plan.  We asked the guy at the counter what his suggestion was and he said to go to Rogers Park which was just up to the road.  So we headed that way!

Rogers Park has a small swimming area that's roped off but mostly it is a lazy type river.  We found a place across the way that was renting Kayaks and things.  We walked over and noted we SHOULD have had a reservation.  Thankfully they had some stand up paddleboards that we all could rent. So off we went and stayed on the river for about an hour and a half.  We paddled upstream at first.

Tim's way more proficient at paddling so he got to places to stop quicker as I was in the back of the group with Cale.

She was happy should could finally get in the water!

Another sandbar break!

On our way farther up the stream Cale was tired from all his paddling, so he hitched a ride with dad.

I snapped this on our way to dinner but you can see how the river winds around.  There were a TON of houses right on the river.  Some of them were dilapidated and some were MANSIONS!!

We found a place called Zig Zag Scallop to eat lunch.  It was DELICIOUS!!  Hands down best scallops I have had in a LONG time.

Tim had shrimp taco's.  He said they were also delicious!

Rain looked like it was coming in so we decided to eat inside.

Glad we did because we got dumped on and it wasn't letting up!

Back in the trailer and Cale was helping get all the stuff that got wet in the rain dry, so we could put it away!  We went to see Toy Story 4 at the local movie theater.  Which is in a mall that is mostly closed down.  I think the theater is the only reason that place is still open on the level that it is.  After the movie we hung out in the camper until we left the next morning!  We loved the campground we were in - I'll post pictures of it in another post!