South Walton, Florida

Wed., Oct. 17th

Today we left Mustang Island in route to the panhandle of Florida… hopefully well away from the aftermath of Hurricane Michael. We had a really fun stay in this south Texas location visiting family and exploring the area! We opted to take the free ferry out of Port Aransas. That was a first… taking the ferry with the 5th wheel. But easy peasy. They just schlepped us on and schlepped us off. We didn’t travel all that far today and had a nice ride still traveling east across Texas and landed in Bay City outside Houston. We were in the belly of the beast watching the Red Sox play the Houston Astros… and winning! 

Thursday, Oct. 18th

We’re still traveling east across the lower Gulf States. Today we left Texas (after entering the state three weeks ago to the day) and landed in Westlake, Louisiana. We traveled through field after field of sugar cane. I had to look up in google what it was. We didn’t recognize the plants. Once again we’re in Houston Astros country so we quietly cheered the win tonight and clinching the World Series!

Friday, Oct. 19th

Today we continued to travel through Louisiana on I-10 East. Very pretty crossing rivers, marshy areas, and bayou type areas over lots of bridges. A different landscape than we’re accustomed to. We landed in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. We were here early enough that we decided to head out and explore the area a bit. So beautiful! We took a ride along North/South Beach Blvd, otherwise known as Mississippi Gulf Coast Scenic Byway. The Gulf and white sand beaches were on one side and beautiful stately homes on the other with a wide pedestrian path for walking or biking on the side of the bay/gulf. Really quite spectacular… and very quiet and pristine… perhaps because parking is so limited. Maybe that’s done on purpose… keep the riffraff out… like us! In any event, we would definitely come back and spend more time to be able to explore this area further.  

Saturday, Oct. 20th

Today was the day that we saw outer remnants of Hurricane Michael on I-10 East in the Panhandle. Lots of trees that were chopped in half by the wind or uprooted, highway signage down, billboards down, and some roof damage. But the interstate itself was clear. We landed in Freeport, FL… about 50 miles northwest of Panama City. We arrived at Live Oak Landing and we’re here for three nights. It has a combo of campground sites and cottages for rent and has pretty views of the Choctawhatchee River. At least half the people in the campground were disaster relief workers. We saw an aerial photographer, roofers, mold remediation companies, environmental companies, insurance adjusters, etc. Some of the workers were here alone as well as some had spouses and children with them. Most were from states not too far away… Alabama, Texas, Mississippi. For them perhaps this is a routine event… responding to natural disasters after the fact. Work that has to be done. But it did remind us of how difficult some lives have become because of this hurricane. 

We settled in and visited the (cool but refreshing) saline pool which was housed in a screened in enclosure. Then the skies were getting dark and we figured we better head back to our tiny home. Sure enough shortly after we got back the skies opened and it poured. 

Today was the first day back in the Eastern Time Zone in quite some time, which seems more “normal” to us. 

Sunday, Oct. 21st

We decided to head out and explore the area. South Walton is a 26 mile stretch along the Gulf of Mexico. The beaches have sugar white sand and there are fourteen different communities along the 26 miles with names such as Watercolor, Seaside, Seagrove, Alys Beach, Rosemary Beach…. you get the idea. Many of the communities subscribe to a certain architectural style known as New Urbanism, which embraces a walkable, bike friendly, and smaller scale building style that encourages porches, balconies, and certain areas for parking, shopping, etc. It makes for a very cohesive look, if a bit disney-esque. But very pretty! The main road (Scenic 30A) which cut through most of the neighborhoods was a tree lined one lane road each way. Very nice, but could feel a bit claustrophobic in some of the more popular (i.e. populated) neighborhoods. There are certain access points to the beach for the general public, otherwise there are condos, houses, or rental properties lining the beach area, and sections for shopping, dining, etc. There’s also a very nice 18-mile (or so) bike path that runs the length. One town had about 10 different airstreams lined up next to each other… each selling different dining options out of them. Very cool!  

There were also some beautiful state parks with direct beach access making for a very natural beach environment. After a day of walking the beaches and exploring, it was time to head back to the campground, but first with a stop in Walmart for a few items and a grocery store run. We’d save a lot of money if we didn’t eat. 

Monday, Oct. 22nd

We decided to head over to a state park we hadn’t visited yesterday, Topsail Hill State Park, and do a bike ride. We biked a nature trail seeing lots of local flora/fauna and visited a Coastal Dune Lake. South Walton has 15 such lakes, which are abundant in FL but not so abundant elsewhere in the world (only found in New Zealand, North Africa, Madagascar, and Australia.) They fluctuate between freshwater and brackish water as they exchange water with the Gulf of Mexico. Many of South Walton’s dune lakes are surrounded by preserved land so the settings are beautiful. As we were riding thru the nature trail, two small deer crossed in front of us, which made for a rather special moment. We continued on the trail and headed down to the beach area. No one there but one other bike rider. Beautiful. 

They have a campground at Topsail which we had wanted to check out but it was closed. I think they were leaving it available to disaster workers if needed. But on the bikes, we were able to skirt around the gate and check it out. Great large sites with vegetation, which would make for a great camping experience. We bumped into a campground host on his golf cart making the rounds so we chatted him up about the area. And, he quizzed us about camping in Maine. Everyone wants to camp in Maine! 

After spending a few hours at Topsail we moved on to ice cream at a Ben & Jerry’s shop then Henderson Beach State Park further down the coast towards the Destin area. Once again, the beach area was inhabited by just a few folks, and we had a chance to check out the campground, which was very nice. We’d stay here in the future for sure. 

We took a different route back to our campground on a less traveled route and had views of the Choctawhatchee River.

Tomorrow we move on…. changing our route from the original plan, which was to camp for two nights in Eastpoint, which was one of the areas hit by Hurricane Michael, so that’s not happening. More on that in the next blog post….