We made it. My bag was two pounds under the 50 pound limit.
I was aware that entry into another country was pending as we were taxiing out at the Atlanta airport. The plane wasn't exactly a puddle-jumper, but she certainly was not full. We were flying to Panama City Airport which is conveniently not listed as such but EBC... East Bay County - talk about confusing. Anyway, we're taxiing out when the flight attendant comes on, "We are preparing for departure for..." she looks down the aisle because she doesn't know where EBC is either. The passengers clue her in... "for Panama City, FL. In-flight time is estimated as 36 minutes." Strange estimate in there anyway... why not just say 35 minutes?
As we're preparing to land, all one can see for miles is nothing, what looks like ponds of water, and more nothing. I can see a strip... one landing strip in the distance and what looks like a pavilion next to it.
The landing was rough, but the runway was short. This is probably the largest plane they land here. There's only five gates at this airport and three baggage claims. As far as international airports go... while it was air conditioned and quite lovely, it was pretty much a pavilion. I don't expect long security lines on the flight back.
When we met my uncle, aunt, and my grandmother (who I will probably rant about later in a lengthy post), We hurry to the AC of the car and buzz into Panama City, proper for lunch. I saw no oil, media hounds. I saw blue sea and white beach and hotels and shopping. Sorry to disappoint.
Anyway, when we leave we drive through forests of Southern Pine. There's really no way to describe these forests to anyone who is not familiar with the area. These aren't dense wooded areas, but they do have a lot of trees. The problem is that the Southern Pine pretty much amounts to a toothpick with needles on top. My relatives explain that they grow groves of them here to be chopped down to make paper. They're really pathetic looking things... having come from areas which are well wooded with a variety of thick foliage... it's sort of like really tall Charlie Brown Trees in mass - not too many limbs.
Anyhow, we drove through about an hour of these with no cell phone service, pass several shanties which we joked about stopping to take pictures of, but never dared to stop the car. I'm not certain if we thought we'd offend the people actually residing in these shacks or if we were frightened they'd harm us. Some were just little wood huts really, while others resembled trailers that some tornado in a nearby state picked up and dropped off here... broken windows, missing walls - of course, maybe nobody lived in them... but we weren't about to find out.
Luckily, my Aunt and Uncle live in a really nice home which they built on a really nice lot up a really nice long driveway. They have two dogs that run to great us (an overweight black lab and a doberman) and an orange cat that hangs out on their screened in porch. They've got two paints and a pony grazing out at pasture, too.
There were some funny stories and good jokes... and a few classic southern moments involving cockroach killing and offering the remains to the dog, a pound cake being baked, sweet tea, and all manner of southern gossip that makes one wonder how far we've come since "Gone With the Wind," but I'm going to save some of the shinier gems for another time... preferably not 1AM.
Goodnight.
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