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diff --git a/scratch.txt b/scratch.txt index 127737a..679c6b2 100644 --- a/scratch.txt +++ b/scratch.txt @@ -208,26 +208,53 @@ Every little withdrawl you can make, not only resists the system, but empowers y ## St George -Driving west on Florida's highway 98 is a little like traveling back in time. It's hard to believe standing on a crowded beach in Panama City, but not ten miles east, once you pass through tk, the actual city of Panama City, the crowds disappear. Along with everything else. After winding through some rundown warehouse districts at the very eastern edge of the city the highway passes over tk bay and onto the property of tk Air Force Base. +Driving west on Florida's highway 98 is a little like traveling back in time. It's hard to believe standing amidst the crowds of Panama City Beach, but not ten miles east, once you pass through the actual Panama City, the crowds disappear, along with everything else. -The base is a kind of barrier that stops Panama City from advancing eastward. After you clear the base you're in Mexico Beach, which is in the process of expanding for some reason. It's the least appealing part of this area. Perhaps it's cheap. It's once you clear Mexico Beach that you begin to slip back in time a little. This is a place we've been coming since 2009. +After winding through some rundown warehouse districts at the very eastern edge of the city the highway passes over East Bay and onto the property of Tyndall Air Force Base. The base is a kind of barrier that stops Panama City from advancing eastward. Once you clear the long stretch of pine forest that makes up the eastern portion of the base you come to Mexico Beach, which is in the process of expanding. I'm not sure why, it's the least appealing part of this area. My working theory is that it's cheap. If you can't afford 30A, you buy here maybe. -The region from roughly Port St Joe in the west, to Alligator Point in the east, is known as the lost coast. That's mostly marketing, but it has an element of truth to it. Far fewer people come out here. It's too far from any airports and it lacks any resorts to really draw in the tourists. +It's after Mexico Beach that you begin to slip back in time. The road alternates running along the seashore and winding through slash pine forests. It's wilder, and only occasionally interspersed with small towns. This is the part of Florida we've been visiting regularly since 2010. -Having been coming here for so long, I've written about this area quite a few times. In [All The Pretty Beaches](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2013/05/all-the-pretty-beaches) I call it "a little backwater in time", a slice of the world as it used to be before the proliferation of mega-resorts and all-inclusive vacation package extravaganzas. I'm happy to report that the island itself still very much has that feel. +<img src="images/2023/GX010132-f001676.jpg" id="image-3481" class="picwide" /> -There's still little more to St. George than a store, a gas station and a couple of seafood trailers offering up fresh shrimp, snapper and scallops from nearby Apalachicola. There are plenty of AirBnBs and condos, but the two motels are still rundown affairs that look like holdouts from the early 1990s. +The region from roughly Port St Joe in the west, to Alligator Point in the east, is known as The Lost Coast. That's mostly a local marketing term, but it has an element of truth to it. Far fewer people come out here. It's too far from any airports and it lacks high end resorts to draw in the tourists. Those who come here like it that way. -Things have changed over the years of course. AirBnB changed everything everywhere for the worse. Prices are through the roof. We couldn't afford to rent the beach house we used to stay in, but that's okay, we don't rent anymore. These days we head even further away from civilization to the state park at the far end of the island. It's a good twenty minute drive from the campsite to the first signs of the civilization, which is a rarity on the east coast, let alone on the Florida coast. +<img src="images/2023/2023-04-15_071331_st-george.jpg" id="image-3466" class="picwide" /> -We weren't planning to be here for ten days. Campsites on St. George mostly book up a year in advance. But somehow we managed to string together ten nights by scooping up other people's cancellations. We had to move around a lot, but luckily that's not hard here. +Having been coming here for so long, I've written about this area quite a few times so I went back and read some of my older pieces. In [All The Pretty Beaches](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2013/05/all-the-pretty-beaches) I call this area "a little backwater in time" and it still is, mostly. It's a slice of the world as was before the proliferation of mega-resorts and all-inclusive vacation package extravaganzas. -Apalachicola has changed +There's still little more to St. George than a store, a gas station and a couple of seafood trailers offering up fresh shrimp and scallops from nearby Apalachicola. Sure, there are plenty of AirBnBs and condos, and I'd guess that there are fewer full time residents than there were in 2010, but the two motels are still rundown affairs that still look like holdouts from the early 1990s. Nothing on the island feels all that different than it did over a decade ago. Perhaps this place really is lost. -There’s nothing about this place that even hints at the world of resorts and all-inclusive packages. And that’s the way I like it. +Little things have changed of course. Doug's seafood trailer is no longer there, Doug passed away several years ago. The grocery store on the island is considerably fancier than it used to be. A Boar's Head has replaced the dried out breaded shrimp under heat lamps. But otherwise the same resturants still serve up the same food to people that look much the same as they always have. +Prices are through the roof though. We couldn't afford to rent the beach house we used to stay in even if we wanted to. AirBnB changed everything everywhere for the worse. That's okay. These days we head even further away from civilization to the state park at the far end of the island. It's a good twenty minute drive from our campsite to the first signs of the civilization, which is a rarity on the east coast, let alone on the Florida coast. -It’s +It manages to feel even further removed than that. When we come out here we load up before hand so we don't really have to leave the park. For about ten days we didn't do much other than wander the maritime forests of oak and pine and swim and play in the sea. + +The only problem was the purple flag. + +Coming from California, I find Florida's definition of what makes for a red flag day downright hilarious. I have never seen any beach conditions in the Gulf that would warrant more than a yellow flag in California. If that. But here the red flag is almost constant. I've already said my piece about our safety-third philosophy, I won't repeat it here. But a purple flag is different. We did not have those in California. The purple flag is for "stinging marine life". I talked to a ranger about it. Portuguese man o' war had been washing up the week before. He said it had been a few days since they'd had any alerts. But then, you never now. Portugese Man-o-war are pretty obvious in clear water, they stick up above the surface and are bright purple. The problem is their tentacles can be alarming long and often proceed them in the water, depending on current. + +When we were here at Christmas the kids and I stumbled on a little trail that led down to the leeward side of the island, which faces St. George Island sound. + + + + +And, + + + +<img src="images/2023/2023-04-11_152823_st-george.jpg" id="image-3465" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2023/2023-04-11_145822_st-george.jpg" id="image-3464" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2023/2023-04-05_113155_st-george.jpg" id="image-3463" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2023/2023-04-04_163641_st-george.jpg" id="image-3462" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2023/2023-04-04_162252_st-george.jpg" id="image-3461" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2023/2023-04-04_160444_st-george.jpg" id="image-3460" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2023/2023-04-04_155857_st-george.jpg" id="image-3459" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2023/2023-04-04_152419_st-george.jpg" id="image-3458" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2023/2023-04-04_151441_st-george.jpg" id="image-3457" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2023/2023-04-04_151356_st-george.jpg" id="image-3456" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2023/2023-04-03_151352_st-george.jpg" id="image-3455" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2023/2023-04-03_142846_st-george.jpg" id="image-3454" class="picwide" /> ## Bus Work |