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Pam riding a chicken Day 7 Blog – May 19, 2019 – Tallahassee, FL thru Pensacola to Atmore, AL– 339 miles
This was Pam and Tim’s 35
th wedding anniversary and was strange for her to be without her husband, but we all tried to make it a special day for her. She sent him loving reminders from several of the beaches.
With it our last day on the Florida coast, our mission was to have as much fun as possible. As Pam was driving us south from Tallahassee down to the beaches, we soon spied 2 giant chickens beside the road. A quick zip into the parking lot and soon Pam was up on top of one. We were getting this day off to a good start. Not long thereafter, we spotted a giant chair and, of course, we made a stop. We spent a while making pictures the 3 of us with the remote only to discover that it didn’t work that far. Oops! Had to start over, only 2 of us were able to get in the picture. We were primed and ready now . . .
As we were driving in a pretty estuary-like area with Spanish moss hanging
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Claire and Susan in the big chair all around, we soon caught a glimpse of a giant shark, crab, and squid beside the road, so another veer off the road for more silly pictures. Lots of blackwater was all around and made us sing “Oh, blackwater, keep on rolling” until we saw a sign for bear warnings and we went on a bear hunt. No bears were found.
On our way to visit a bottle lighthouse and a bottle house in Carrabelle, we caught a picture of a giant baseball. What a hoot it was stopping at the world’s smallest police station (in a telephone booth) on our way to the Crocked River Light House. Susan and Claire both were arrested by bees.
Shortly thereafter, we begin to see the first signs of damage from last October’s Hurricane Michael. Blue tarps on roofs and missing siding began to dot the gulf shore drive. Soon, instead of driving next to a beach, we were driving next to a drop off into the Gulf of Mexico with no guard rail for protection. It was clear from the uneven and large sections of newly paved road much of it had washed out in the storm. We drove out
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giant crab on a long bridge to see the St. George Lighthouse that Susan really liked with its cream color and brown-wooden shutters. Back on the coastal highway, we went through Apalachicola and stopped to visit the small St. Joseph Point Lighthouse. Was it a house? There was a basketball goal, grill, and lawn chairs outside.
Our stop at Port St. Joe Lighthouse is where the hurricane damage really hit our emotions hard. From the lighthouse, our view inland was a large church with its steeple and most of its expansive roof ripped right off, but farther behind it, the metal roof on a huge warehouse was peeled off the top and barely hanging on. It was quite surreal. Continuing on, the damage increased and got so bad that we had to detour around what appeared to be where the road was still being repaired. Nearly every home around had blue tarps and siding or rooms ripped off along with piles of debris waited to be taken away. Eventually, we made it back to the beach road and in the Mexico Beach area we could see miles of concrete foundations dotting the sand where nice beach front homes once stood. There,
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shark and squid the devastation set in. In one day, Hurricane Michael had ripped through homes and livelihoods alike. It was truly sad and hard to fathom what they must have endured this past year. From there, the storm damage slowly began to improve, but even the Tyndall Airforce base still showed quite a bit of damage.
By the time we made it to Panama City, everything seemed to be rebuilt and we had changed to Central Time Zone. Out on the beach, Pam drew a love message in the sand for Tim and we all made shadow pictures together. Panama City is a huge tourist area similar to Myrtle Beach. All sorts of creatures lived there (Moby Dick, Jaws, a giant bull & Willy the Whale) and we managed to get pictures with all of them. Pictures were also snapped of the Titanic and an upside-down building. As we drove out of Panama Beach area, we caught a strange sight of several bars and floating play areas out in the middle of the bay surrounded by numerous boats and jet skis.
Another stop in Destin Beach was to see the gorgeous, white sand which wasn’t as fine and pure as
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large baseball on the side of the road Clearwater Beach, but it was the nicest we had seen today. The gulf waters were a true emerald green color lapping on the beach. This time, the shadow pictures turned silly. We just couldn’t keep from smiling. Pam also made some pictures to send to Tim.
In search of a giant Coke bottle we went into Fort Walton. Well, no Coke bottle was to be found, but we did find a miniature church for pics. Susan wanted us to take the coastal ride to Pensacola, and we were sure glad we did. Even though it started off with high rise hotels all around us, we soon entered Gulf Shores National Park Sea Shore and were able to drive 7 miles through beautiful white sand dunes with the emerald water peaking through every so often. It was very peaceful and serene. In Pensacola, we ate outside near the intercoastal waterway (even shared a piece of Key Lime Pie to celebrate Pam and Tim’s anniversary), then stopped for pictures at a tiny house near the Pensacola Police Station.
In order to have a shorter trip back home tomorrow and get out of the chaos of the big city, we decided
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lighthouse made out of bottles to head about 70 miles north. The two-lane road ran through the countryside and allowed us one final experience all by ourselves. We were in the complete darkness in the middle of nowhere and we got another pelting of bugs. These weren’t love bugs (which would have been appropriate on Pam’s anniversary, but love bugs aren’t out after dark); no, these mammoth bugs were more like small birds. The thuds of these kamikaze bird-bugs hitting the windshields were louder than a popcorn popper and accompanied us through miles of darkness. Finally, we saw a sign for the Alabama state line and, immediately, we were blinded by the light. The city of Atmore ran right up to the state line. It full of bright lights, civilization, stores, homes, people, but no bugs. It was the strangest thing!!!
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