We weren’t super thrilled to be leaving our amazing spot in Destin, but the reality of really not knowing where our next stop would be was pretty enticing in a strange way. After discussing it, we decided on a comfortable goal of traveling about 200 miles per day. That should allow us some time to travel pretty leisurely, stop and see something if we wanted to and (hopefully) not want to strangle each other. After spending some time the previous evening looking over a real, genuine paper road map (which I fully recommend everyone carry with them) we were pretty confident we wanted to stay off interstate highways as much as possible. We had something like a plan forming…at least for the next 24 hours.
We left Destin on highway 98 heading east. It looked like it would follow the coast of Florida pretty well all the way along the panhandle, up and around the bend into the peninsula slightly. So we roughly gauged where 200 miles or so might put us and we hit the road. It really is a beautiful coastline and everywhere we went it just felt very quiet, well…after we got through the next big city…
Before we got to that next big city, we went through a small beach town called Laguna Beach. It was a little windy and maybe slightly cooler than the day before but once again, the beach itself was deserted and we were able to park the RV right on a pull-off by the beach. It was awesome. The water starts becoming more green as we go which I assume is why its called the emerald coast.
After a brief respite with that beautiful water and sand, we deliberately pushed through Panama City and into Tyndall Air Force Base. That is when we started seeing the remnants of destruction from Hurricane Michael. Hangars damaged, thousands of trees snapped, base housing and other buildings devastated and looking abandoned. It was sobering. Mile after mile of destruction.
A little farther down the road we find another beautiful and deserted beach town. Mexico Beach is another casualty of Hurricane Michael in October 2018 and it is still very evident that recovery is going to be a long process for these folks. I do not have photos of the devastation but I’m sure they have the resolve to bounce back. They’re beach is also breathtaking. Another to add to the list.
We still had no place to park the RV at this point, so we decided to drive to St. George Island and try our luck at that state park. We read it was still being rehabilitated after the hurricane but was open. The frustrating thing about some of these camping facilities is the hit and miss ability to actually get a human on the phone to speak with. And if you do, because of the internet based reservation systems, some of the humans cannot actually tell you if there is availability. So we went. We drove right up to the ranger and told them we took a chance to see if they had a spot. They did not but did recommended a few rv parks just up the road. You win some and you lose some. We couldn’t see the actual campground from the check-in building but it certainly looks like someplace we will want to spend a day or two in the future.
We did find one of the parks had an opening and it was right across the street from the ocean on Carrabelle Beach. Carrabelle Beach RV Resort is a pretty nice RV resort in our opinion. I think its actually the first RV “Resort” we’ve stayed at but it was very well put together, the staff are very friendly and we had a pretty nice view for a few hours until someone parked their rig in front of us. We walked across to the beach and once again, virtually deserted…
It’s worth noting that evidently campfires are allowed on the beach here and if we had known or had a little more energy left, we would’ve tried that out for fun. Next time…
