The Florida panhandle
Heading East from Fairhope, Alabama, I checked the weather reports at my planned destinations and thought I knew what the weather was going to be. The last time I made that rookie mistake, I wound up driving through an unexpected freezing fog in the mountains of western Texas. This time I was only surprised by sunshine and increased warmth along the coast, but it was the same mistake because I didn't understand the local climate variations in areas I'd be driving through.
The drive through the panhandle was wonderful. Upper 70's and low 80's, clear air, not many people compared to high season. Early in my drive that day, the sky started to remind me of watercolor paintings. There's a softness to the sky and clouds in this area that isn't like the kinds of sky I'm used to seeing. Within minutes of thinking about watercolor paintings, I saw a road sign pointing to Watercolor. My thought was that it was an old-time village named by the locals for their beautiful sky and seascapes. However, it's a housing development still being built: https://www.joe.com/community/watercolor Oh well, it was a nice fantasy for a moment.
I took this photo from the road I drove along:
The sugar-white sand in Destin was stunning, although I didn't get any photos of it. The sand in this photo is almost as white as it was in Destin, but not quite. I took this while driving a bit further East of Destin:
I liked the vibe in Panama City Beach better than the vibe in Destin, I think because it's been developed as a tourist spot for longer. Destin is highly developed, but in a way that feels more recent and compressed. PCB feels like it's evolved over generations. I took the scenic route along the coast, where often only a parking lot or a single row of houses separated the highway from the beach. I also have pleasant associations with Panama City Beach from a movie I saw many years ago that is a favorite of mine called "Ruby in Paradise" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108000/. It is nearly impossible to view that movie these days, since it's never been published on DVD or for streaming. I have a VHS copy and I have the equipment to play it, but it does weird things on my newer TV so I have to break out the old one to watch. The movie made me a fan of Ashley Judd, although I can't say I've liked any of her performances quite as much since then.
I took this photo of the entrance to a mini-golf course in Panama City Beach:
I knew that on my way East through the panhandle I'd be driving through Mexico Beach, the town that was pretty much wiped off the map by Hurricane Michael a little over a year ago. I started noticing damage that looked like it came from that storm about 20 miles before I got to Mexico Beach, in a little town called Parker. There were quite a few abandoned buildings with big chunks of roof missing, and other buildings with blue tarps covering the entire roof. As I got closer to Mexico Beach, I saw many, many tree trunks broken at about the same height with their tops resting on the ground. This video shows the damage to Tyndall AFB, and at about the 2:45 mark you can see aerial footage of the forest with all the broken trees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbMHqBnnBL4
At Tyndall AFB I saw several huge, heavy-duty tents that looked like the ones that housed Bookshop Santa Cruz after the Loma Prieta Earthquake. They are quick temporary buildings are quite large. You can see a photo of part of the Bookshop Santa Cruz tent here: http://goodtimes.sc/cover-stories/bookshop-santa-cruz-celebrates-50-years/ There's more interesting video about the rebuilding of Tyndall AFB base here: https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2019/10/10/tyndall-afb-still-grappling-with-disrepair-1-year-after-hurricane-michael#
Mexico Beach itself was buzzing with construction activity. I passed a sign on some construction vehicles that said, "Rebuilding Mexico Beach on time at a fair price." I also saw a sign advertising work for carpenters. Many buildings there were complete or nearly so, and then a few feet away was wreckage that looked like it hadn't been touched yet or lots that had been cleared of wreckage. I felt so conspicuous driving around in my big white van taking pictures that I didn't take many, but I did snap this one that shows a vacant lot next to new construction in Mexico beach just a few blocks from the coastline:
I thought I'd arrived in the part of Florida where palm trees outnumbered pine trees, but that was a temporary situation. Soon I'd leave this warmer part of the coast and head back into the pine forest and fog.
The drive through the panhandle was wonderful. Upper 70's and low 80's, clear air, not many people compared to high season. Early in my drive that day, the sky started to remind me of watercolor paintings. There's a softness to the sky and clouds in this area that isn't like the kinds of sky I'm used to seeing. Within minutes of thinking about watercolor paintings, I saw a road sign pointing to Watercolor. My thought was that it was an old-time village named by the locals for their beautiful sky and seascapes. However, it's a housing development still being built: https://www.joe.com/community/watercolor Oh well, it was a nice fantasy for a moment.
I took this photo from the road I drove along:
The sugar-white sand in Destin was stunning, although I didn't get any photos of it. The sand in this photo is almost as white as it was in Destin, but not quite. I took this while driving a bit further East of Destin:
I liked the vibe in Panama City Beach better than the vibe in Destin, I think because it's been developed as a tourist spot for longer. Destin is highly developed, but in a way that feels more recent and compressed. PCB feels like it's evolved over generations. I took the scenic route along the coast, where often only a parking lot or a single row of houses separated the highway from the beach. I also have pleasant associations with Panama City Beach from a movie I saw many years ago that is a favorite of mine called "Ruby in Paradise" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108000/. It is nearly impossible to view that movie these days, since it's never been published on DVD or for streaming. I have a VHS copy and I have the equipment to play it, but it does weird things on my newer TV so I have to break out the old one to watch. The movie made me a fan of Ashley Judd, although I can't say I've liked any of her performances quite as much since then.
I took this photo of the entrance to a mini-golf course in Panama City Beach:
I knew that on my way East through the panhandle I'd be driving through Mexico Beach, the town that was pretty much wiped off the map by Hurricane Michael a little over a year ago. I started noticing damage that looked like it came from that storm about 20 miles before I got to Mexico Beach, in a little town called Parker. There were quite a few abandoned buildings with big chunks of roof missing, and other buildings with blue tarps covering the entire roof. As I got closer to Mexico Beach, I saw many, many tree trunks broken at about the same height with their tops resting on the ground. This video shows the damage to Tyndall AFB, and at about the 2:45 mark you can see aerial footage of the forest with all the broken trees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbMHqBnnBL4
Mexico Beach itself was buzzing with construction activity. I passed a sign on some construction vehicles that said, "Rebuilding Mexico Beach on time at a fair price." I also saw a sign advertising work for carpenters. Many buildings there were complete or nearly so, and then a few feet away was wreckage that looked like it hadn't been touched yet or lots that had been cleared of wreckage. I felt so conspicuous driving around in my big white van taking pictures that I didn't take many, but I did snap this one that shows a vacant lot next to new construction in Mexico beach just a few blocks from the coastline:
I thought I'd arrived in the part of Florida where palm trees outnumbered pine trees, but that was a temporary situation. Soon I'd leave this warmer part of the coast and head back into the pine forest and fog.
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