Oyster City Brewing – Darden Travels

Food and drink are part of life and seems like our vacation spots revolve around them. Our arrival on a Sunday evening pared down those choices. We found a local brewery, Proof Brewing Company, that also had a food truck as part of their business model.

They had a really nice outside eating & drinking area, ensuring families felt comfortable stopping by with yard games and room for kids to run around.

Local beers were the plan.

Along with fish & chips (Eric) and pork BBQ sliders & fries.

Eric knew that Apalachicola’s Oyster City Brewing had an establishment here and we stopped one afternoon.

My Icelandic sheep made a few appearances. I had the Legacy Lager – a beer that tasted like beer.

Here’s a quick shot of what was on tap.

Eric ordered the Red Right Return – glass on right – a perennial favorite.

One last shot before leaving. Everyone has to have a ‘instamgrammable’ wall nowadays. Okay, I guess it worked. I got a shot and I’m posting it on the internet.

We stayed downtown with plans to walk for dinner. In the past we went to an establishment called Cypress. Alas, it no longer existed. We found another restaurant within walking distance…..

Guess what? Same place – different menu and name but same building. Go figure. Started with some drinks, selecting a pink cocktail for me, a tropical sangria. Delicious!

Eric stuck with iced tea as he was feeling a bit under the weather.

The starter recommended was an excellent choice: pickled veggies amd eggs.

Eric ordered grilled octopus along with a bowl of soup (sorry, no photo).

My filet mignon with a demi-glace was excellent and I had plenty to bring home.

Desserts were a great end to our meal. My selection highlighted glazed bananas and ice cream – an excellent choice. The photo of Eric’s ice cream (2) scoops didn’t make the cut. 🙂

Unfortunately, we cut the trip a few days short. A hurricane had been brewing in the Gulf and looked like it was headed to Central Florida. We needed to prep our house and likely go into work to assist with efforts.

Not knowing what grocery stores or gas stations would be looking like, we gassed up before leaving the city and picked up a few groceries. Stories abounded on social media of shortages in both arenas and we wanted to be prepared. Driving was great – on our side of the road. Only us, some semis hauling supplies and electric companies were headed south.

The governor opened up the far left ’emergency’ lane – crazy – and it was full of drivers.

I looked over once……………..and no vehicles heading north. Oh no. Yep, accidents were seriously delaying the escaping traffic headed north.

So glad we were not on that side of the road.

We made it home safely and prepped for the impending storm. Things like removing potential airborne outside objects, strengthening outside doorways and sand-bagging windows on the house expecting driving rain. One of the biggest challenges……..clearing space in our garage for 2 vehicles! Here’s proof we did it. It wasn’t pretty, but space was found. The guys were waiting on the storm to arrive.

Connor stepped outside for a brief moment, getting soaked in a short minute.

It reached our house at 3:20am. The force of the wind picking up branches, leaves and other debris was nerve-wracking – woke me up. Thanks, hon, for staying up the entire time to keep us safe. 🙂

Did we have any damage? Not directly, but a number of branches were down or broken from the trees we had recently pruned – thank goodness for that.

Plenty of cleanup in the days to follow. Now just waiting for the debris to get picked up.

Saw this post and it seemed fitting – and oh so true. I was talking to the neighbors 7am that morning as we all surveyed the damage in the daylight.

Exciting times are coming with my next series of posts. Heading north again, waaaaaaayyyy north. We will be packing warm clothes. Any thoughts or ideas about our destination? Three of us are going back to one of my favorite spots. Posts will be coming soon.

Ginny

Yeah! We headed back to St. George Island. The drive up was going to be a bit harrowing with this storm in our path. But, the mighty Tundra pulled us through.

We knew from last year’s drive open restaurants were few and far between. Some old favorites had fallen on hard times and were no longer open. Although we had eaten breakfast at home before starting, driving all the way to St. George Island was quite a stretch. Maybe I should clarify…..there were plenty of fast food joints, but we make every effort to eat local. BBQ was Eric’s ‘snack’ of choice – really? BBQ is a snack? He thought a few ribs would carry him over until supper. Me, I just wanted the fries. Dipped in hot BBQ sauce – mighty tasty!

We can’t check into our rental until after 5pm due to all the enhanced cleaning protocols. Rats! In the past it was 3pm and sometimes we could ‘cheat’ the check-in if no one had been renting our selection. Not now. What to do?????? Drive into Apalachicola of course.

Eric needed (I use that word loosely) to fill his 2 Oyster City growlers and this task would help eat up some time.

While waiting in their line, he started up a conversation (I know, everybody’s shocked) and the gentlemen turned out to be a real estate agent……..who could help with selling our land, east of Tallahassee – great! Eric needs to keep that connection going.

Soon enough time passed and we could check into our rental. First you had to get onto the island. BTW they really could upgrade this welcome – just saying. The grass is scraggley, shells in disarray not really a beautiful spot.

Leading to our next sign……….

Houses are a bit pricier here, but winter fishing is most successful at The Cut. Did you notice, we didn’t bring the boat. This time of the year, boating was not the preferred method of catching fish. Plantation is a gated community at the far west end of SGI and The Cut is the furtherest point of land.

FAITH was the name of the rental. Yep, we drove right past it the first time.

Typical SGI beach house: parking underneath, first floor had the bedrooms.

Top floor had the kitchen and gathering spots.

Have to walk to the beach! We can see glimpses peeking between the pine trees and the few houses built nearby.

Interesting boardwalk and literally right across the street from our rental.

The unsettled weather had the beach churned up quite a bit as seen by the erosion. Besides myself, there are a few hearty souls.

If you look waaaaaaay in the distance of the photo below, you can just about see evidence of The Cut – large rocks lining the opening. That’s where the guys and the kids will be spending most of their time fishing – not me.

First dinner on the island is rarely about seafood, or at least not about seafood we have caught. This time was no different, except for our appetizer. Naturally, oysters start the evening.