Still on the road and will do a condensed version. Stayed in a couple of Florida State Parks which are wireless free so a little behind in the travel diary.
Tuesday we left late, tooted along the #98 along the coast and just took our time. We actually backtracked a few miles as we wanted to visit the Florida Tourist Info center. There is always once in our trips we have to go backwards. It was a beautiful sunny day and we ended up in Navarre at the Emerald Beach RV Park which was right by the gulf. Met a couple from Ontario who own a lodge near the Georgian Bay. They were quite delightful and funny. Barbecue was delicious.
Wednesday we headed across the bridge to Santa Rosa Island and headed 28 miles west to Fort Pickens. There were some condos and houses but most of those miles were roads half covered in sand and they had pay loaders and bulldozers clearing away the sand from the beach parking lots and roads. As we approached the Fort, the trees were dead and the landscape was very eerie. Two hurricanes hit in 05 and 06 and there was so much salt it killed everything. We had a tour of the Fort (a lot of it still standing) and it was very interesting. The guide was so enthusiastic and you could tell he loved his job. Bernie finally found a condensed version of the Civil War in the Fort bookstore. We drove back the 28 miles (backwards again) thru the sand, across the bridge and headed down the road thru Destin, and onto Watercolour, Seaside and Seagrove Beach. Aren't they such great names and the buildings, streets, stores, etc match the names. I could come back to these places. We spent the night (back down the road 2 miles) at Grayton Beach State Park. Went for walk to the beach which is beautiful white sand for miles but the water is freezing cold even for we Maritimers.
Thursday we managed to get up earlier and hit the beach for a nice long walk. Beautiful sunny morning but clouds on the horizon. We did the big trip today and made it 90km down the road to Panama City Beach. Bernie had spotted a German Beer Garden advertisement in a pamphlet so we sniffed it out and had lunch. Delicious meal of sausage, schnitzel, potatoes and of course German Beer. As we were enjoying our lunch, the skies opened up and we had one heck of a thunderstorm. So we shopped or mostly window shopped. Still raining so Bernie made the mad dash for the RV and being the noble guy he is, he drove and picked me up. After pulling into the camp ground at St, Andrew's State Park we curled up and spent a couple of hours reading and listening to the rain on the roof. It brought back pleasant memories of camp and family camping. Nothing nicer than hearing rain on a tent or camper roof (as long as we are dry :-) ). Still wet at supper time so Bernie treated me to supper at Hooters - had never been and it was quite interesting with all the Spring Breakers around. The joys of being young !
Capped the day off with a sunset on the beach
Friday we left Panama City Beach and headed up the road to Carrabelle Beach (did 160kms today), Along the way we saw another poor soul dressed in a green costume advertising for a company that does income taxes. We have seen them for the last 3 or 4 days and they are getting funnier and funnier. Parts of the #98 have beautiful scenery along the shore and the homes are every shape and colour. We took a couple of side roads, had a picnic lunch in the marina at Apalachicola (the man who invented refrigeration is from here) and pulled into the Carrabelle Beach RV Park at 1:30 - landed the last available site. Beautiful sunny, hot day so we hit the beach right across the road and went for a nice walk and then vegged on the sand. So great hearing those waves and feeling the suns rays. But the water is still too cold to swim. Called Katja to wish her happy birthday but she was not home from work. Had a great little chat with Derek. Steve Lockhart asked us to look up his friends Skip and Kathy Frisk in Carrabelle so we did. Met them and a few of their friends at a small cafe and we had a great time. It was just like a blind date - describing to each other over the phone what we looked like.
No comments:
Post a Comment