Salem, FL

Perry, FL

Started off in a bit of a fog this morning. The air, not my head. I got on the road just after 8 which is almost a record but I awoke early and was trying to beat the rain that felt like it might start at any moment. It actually brightened up somewhat during the drive, and didn’t start raining so was pleasant enough.

I continued along the Florida Panhandle on Highway 98 all the way to my stop for the night in Perry, Florida. I travelled through some more large beach towns (Panama City Beach, Mexico Beach) and a couple of other smaller cute places on the coast, Port St Joe (this is where the first constitution of Florida was written) and Apalachicola, and Carrabelle (I missed seeing the world’s smallest police station! featured on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson). These places had more personal summer “camps” rather than the huge condos and hotels of the other larger beach communities.

To the north of Highway 98 along much of my route was the Apalachicola National Forest and there was evidence of logging and milling in the area. And there were some ranches along the way as well So the scenery changed from beach towns to bay front towns to forests to farms. Really quite varied.

There isn’t anything of note in Perry, Florida other than it’s at a convenient spot to stop for the night and has a KOA, albeit a less than mediocre one. I didn’t even unhitch the trailer, so low was my curiosity level about this town. So, it’s a purely utilitarian stop tonight.

Did meet some nice people, Wilbur and Pam, who are staying here from 130 miles south of here and are on a bit of a business/pleasure trip. We had a very interesting discussion about the U.S. Presidential race. Very interesting time to be in the U.S. They voted for Obama last election and are supporting Trump this time. They knew that we had a Prime Minister rather than a President and that we didn’t elect him/her directly, and that our current one is young and is the son of a previous Prime Minister. More than many Americans know about Canadian politics.

It’s getting darker as I type this, which is partly clouds, but partly because I’ve moved into the eastern timezone at some point today. So back on home time. The forecast is for thunderstorms this evening and cooler temps tomorrow. Hope it doesn’t include tornado force winds again!

Saint Marks, FL

Carrabelle, FL

Apalachicola, FL

Port St Joe, FL

Panama City, FL

Miramar Beach, FL

Yesterday, I drove only 2 hours east on Highway 98 from Pensacola along the Gulf coast to a town called Destin. Well, technically I’m in Miramar Beach, which is just east of Destin. The drive was unremarkable except to say that I never seemed to be in the countryside and the only way you could tell you were travelling from one town to the other was by the “Welcome to XXX’ signs. I remember that being the case in the lower peninsula part of Florida as well.

This is the most developed of the Gulf beach areas that I’ve seen, I think. And the sand is perhaps the nicest. It’s really fine without being powdery, making for great sand castles, and it is absolutely white. There are no shells and there is no seaweed or anything else along the beach. Don’t think they are groomed, must just be the currents.

Yesterday was a little cool to be on the beach, but after setting up I walked down to our beach and sat there anyway and read my book for a bit. Then I did my normal orientation tour around town to see what was here. Seems like almost everything is.

Today I checked out the outlet mall across the street, but with the Canadian dollar so low, it would have to be a really good price to make it worthwhile and I didn’t see anything that made it worthwhile. It is a bit warmer today and I ventured off to Henderson Beach State Park to spend a couple of hours on the beach reading and people watching. Got a little wind burned, but felt good to soak up some sun.

I grabbed a late lunch/early dinner at one of the few restaurants on the beach – nothing spectacular, but again I went for location over food quality.

Since I’ve been back at the RV Park I’ve spent my time visiting with other campers who are out wandering and stop by and reading. I haven’t been able to settle down to recreational reading much on this trip as I alway seem to be either writing my blog or reading about my next stop so I make the most of my time on the road. But since I’ve mapped out the next few weeks I’m taking a break from tour planning and vegging a little. Loving it.

I’m feeling a bit guilty sending more pictures of white sand beaches when most of you are having to deal with other white stuff. But really, the only alternative would be sending pics of malls, and that wouldn’t be much fun. I’m here for another day and then will have a couple of travel days that will be more of the same (strip mall after strip mall), so you might not hear from me for a few days.

Lillian, AL

Pensacola Beach, FL

Here’s a catch up of the last couple of days of news from the road. I haven’t been on the move too much so I didn’t have enough to write about without letting it accumulate. I’ve been at the same KOA on the Alabama/Florida border (Lillian, Alabama to be precise) since arriving on Sunday. It’s been really nice to just stay put for a few days.

Although I have been in one place, it hasn’t been without its excitement. Monday, since the forecast was for thundershowers, I spent the day doing chores and errands. Shopping, cleaning, etc. I also headed out to get the oil and filters changed on my Toyota. While in the dealership, where they kindly found a hole in the schedule for me, and having the rare treat of watching a TV, I saw that there was a tornado watch out for the county I was both in at the moment and in the one where my trailer was sitting. And you KNOW that tornados always hit trailer parks! They showed video of a twister which touched down in Century, just 45 mins north of my current location. I had been through Century on Sunday on my way down from Montgomery. Turns out there was damage to 30 houses (well many were mobile homes since there is an unusually high number of those in this part of the world) but only one injury and one person taken to hospital out of concern about a potential heart attack. I was sorry that the work on my car was finished as the watch continued for the rest of the evening although by now it was moving away from my location. I rode out the evening in my trailer, listening to the radio and watching the branches and garbage flying by my trailer and hoping not to see my neighbour’s (a Brit couple) tent taking off. I have to admit that I was a tad scared! The wind was significant but not enough to do any real damage. I did however discover that the leak over my bed was NOT fixed in New Orleans. I have now bought a tube of silicon myself and with direction from the manufacturer will use it on all potential leak spots tomorrow after letting it dry out well over the last couple of days.

So the excitement over, I spent the day yesterday relaxing and I did another road trip to the Alabama Gulf Coast, where I had lunch at another nice spot on the water. I also stimulated the economy a little in one of the beach shops.

Today I headed out towards the Naval Air Base in Pensacola to find the Pensacola Lighthouse. It is right on the base and I had to go through security and that threw me off but eventually discovered how to get to it. It’s an unusual lighthouse as you’ll see from the pictures in that it’s painted black. There is a video playing in the museum there, that was done by one of the groups that does taping of paranormal activity because apparently the lighthouse keeper’s home is haunted. I watched if for a few minutes but decided I could do with out more stories for my already active imagination. This Naval Air Base is where the Blue Angels US Navy Flight demonstration squad is based and practices. The folks at the lighthouse says it’s a real rush to watch them practise from the top of the lighthouse as they fly almost at eye level. I think that was a slight exaggeration but you get the point. I wasn’t able to go up in the lighthouse today because they are working on it.

I stopped in the historic district of Pensacola for lunch along side a yacht club and near their port. Like most of the coast, Pensacola had the full gamut of Spanish, (in 1559 Tristan de Luna established a short-lived settlement at Pensacola Bay) French and British rule before becoming the 27th American State. They were part of the Confederacy during the Civil War, and the third state to secede. One of the forts guarding the Pensacola harbour, Fort Pickens, was held by the Union forces throughout the Civil War and most of the citizens retreated to Greenville, Alabama as the war progressed. A lot of the city was destroyed by fire at that time, and so not a lot of the historic townsite remains.

Then I headed out over another causeway to Pensacola Beach and fishing pier. Another barrier island, with beautiful white sand beach and hardly a person to be seen. It’s not the tourist season here until spring break and it wasn’t warm enough to be in the water, although there were some surfers trying, but it was a delightful day, nonetheless.