Under the knife

On Tuesday our sweet Tammy Faye, who we suspect is of Cocker Spaniel and Poodle ancestry, underwent oral surgery.  The doggie dentist put her under anesthesia, extracted several rotten teeth, and incidentally took the opportunity to remove a couple of skin cysts.  After waking up, Tammy Faye was groggy but soon back to her usual less than energetic self.  Her appetite, which had been diminished prior to surgery, regained its old enthusiasm.  She's doing great and has resumed her customary duties, which consist mainly of being a beloved and valued member of the Wilson family.

We drove along Highway 30A and explored the beach towns to the east of Destin and Santa Rosa Beach.  The most impressive was Seaside, with its lovely architecture - much like Santa Rosa Beach - and a lineup of cute food trucks on the main road.  It appeared to be both more upscale and more crowded than Santa Rosa Beach.  Unfortunately, when we looked at a display of available homes in the town, real estate prices appeared to be right up there with the Santa Cruz area.

This area has some of the most beautiful beaches we've ever seen.  The water is warm, which of course it isn't even in Southern California, and doesn't stink, as Nancy remembers it often does at the New Jersey shore of her childhood. 

We dropped into a real estate office in Santa Rosa Beach and found that there aren't a lot of homes listed currently, and the prices are very high anywhere near the gulf beaches.  Waterside houses are less expensive on the bay just inland, but there you have to deal with swarms of mosquitoes in the summer months.  The weather is pretty much perfect at this time of the year, but it does get very hot and muggy in the summer.

Our conclusion is that this is a fine area and has a lot to recommend it, but at this point it's hard to imagine that Nancy and I would end up moving here.