April, 2007 - We dropped down to the northern suburbs of Miami from Daytona, swimming at Hobe Sound, Hollywood Beach
and South Beach. Each beach had a different flavor, and we enjoyed the beach scene at each one. The water was turquoise
and warm and we played like children. In Miami we were hosted by
my brother and his family and he took us to a local park with banyan
trees and mangrove swamps. It was dense, exotic foliage, and we
had a great time traipsing along the trails.
An iguana
showed up as we
passed and he
paused for a look
at us before he
scampered off
into the
underbrush.
We were intrigued that an
old building in the park had
been built using coral
building blocks, rather than
the stone you might find at
in an old building
elsewhere in the country.
From Miami we
scooted across to
Sarasota and the
southern Gulf Coast. The gulls flew
overhead as we struggled at times in
traffic. Southern Florida is crowded, and
parking can be quite a challenge...
In Sarasota we walked along Siesta Beach where the white sand is
groomed and resembles Dutch apple pie topping, soft and
crumbly. I had never felt sand quite as soft. The scenic drive
along Sarasota's coast was lovely, and a little further north w had a
leisurely picnic at Coquina Beach. We watched the sailboats
passing through the drawbridge and felt like we were in the tropics.
We wandered north along
the Gulf Coast, watching the
towns get smaller and sleepier as we got away from the big cities to the south. As often
happened in our first year travels, there were things we missed as we skipped along. But
we felt pushed by the growing heat and humidity at the end of April, and after three months
in the Sunshine State we were ready for other kinds of adventures.
We stopped in the little hamlet
of Carrabelle to stretch our
legs and found the World's
Smallest Police Station and a
cute 50's inspired coffee shop.
Sailboats were anchored
across the bay and it looked
like a glorious morning to sit in
the cockpit and sip coffee while
watching the world wake up.
We were
charmed by the
small town of
Appalachicola.
It is a cute
walking town
with fishing
boats tied up at
the pier.
We poked our
heads into a
guitar store
because Mark
needed new
strings for his
guitar. We got
talking with the
store owner
(and her
cockatiel), and
it turned out
her 90+ year
old mother was
an art teacher in a studio down the hall from the music store. It was a
few minutes before the art class was starting, so we dropped in to
check out the gallery and say hello to the teacher. It turned out her name was Alice Jean and she had been a Rockette and a
Coca-Cola model back in the days when Coke ads were hand painted. She had some memorabilia from that era on the wall.
What fun to talk to this elderly lady and imagine the years peeling back to reveal such fresh beauty as we saw in the painted ads.
Continuing west along the
coast of the panhandle the
scenery got prettier and
prettier. We drove out on two
peninsulas capped by state
park's -- St. George's state
park and St. Joseph's state
park. Each was lovely.
We began to see homes built on stilts, and the grassy sand dunes
swept down to the turquoise sea. This area held the promise of
long lazy days
sipping cool drinks
while dipping your
toes in the water. But a sadness hovered over it as well. Almost every home
along the coast was for sale. The country was in a terrible real estate slump and
credit crisis, and this area had been hit hard by hurricanes in the last few years.
Insurance companies were
pulling out, and many people,
like their stilt homes, were being
left high and dry. We saw so
many housing developments
that had been abandoned. The
plot plan billboards were faded and peeling, and the homes stood half-built,
knee deep in weeds. I don't know how an area like this can recover. We
traveled in an awed silence, searching the roadsides for homes that didn't have
a for sale sign out front.
Leaving the panhandle we zipped through Alabama and landed on the Gulf
Coast of Mississippi at a fascinating town called Bay St. Louis.