When the sun goes down,

October may be the month for Oktoberfest’s around the country but, in Destin Florida, it is the month for the fishing rodeo. The Destin Fishing Rodeo has taken place every October since 1948, and for the past 10 years, AJ’s Seafood and Oyster House has been the host for this event.

To kick off the rodeo, Destin puts on the Destin Seafood Festival for three days, and you know I’m going to talk about the food. The Seafood Fest takes place the first weekend in October and

 has been going on since 1978. I went with two of my high school buddies from Hahn, Germany, Bea Bailey and Kathy Fields and met up with another one that I haven’t seen in 31 years, Sean Coppedge. Good times! Good times!

With stages around every corner, you didn’t have far to walk before you heard another band playing. There was everything from Country to Reggae and the good old boogie songs from the 70’s. There were 10 different stages in all for you to choose from and 60 different bands played. I know there was music for everyone’s taste.

                     

Now, back to the food…by the pictures, you can see there was a little bit of any and everything to choose from and the portions were not small either! I would have loved to get a sampler platter with a smidgen of the entire line up, just to try it out. That didn’t happen. When I go to the beach, I want seafood and only seafood, and it’s pretty cool to eat what was caught fresh that day!

We walked around for a couple of hours listening to the music and checking out all of the different venders (I will say there was some pretty cool stuff for sale.) We saw a “Party Bike” (not quite sure how that one works) and a woman posing as a statue.  She moved every couple of seconds to a new position.

With our belly’s starting to rumble, we decided to end the day at

AJ’s and watch the boats come in while listening to a great band. After finding a table with three extra seats, we sat down with Patty and Jeff from Crestview, Florida and made two new friends. Lucky for us, they had a table just above where the weigh-ins took place, and we had a birds-eye view of the fish coming in.
                
As the sun went down, and it was getting late, we headed out. I had a long and EARLY drive in the morning and Bea had a bunch of second-graders to get ready for. If you are in Destin,Florida next year at the beginning of October, spend some time at the Harbor. I promise you a great time will be had by all!

This is my journey…