What, you might ask, does the above have to do with our RV travel blog? I will explain in a moment. Hint: these are musical notes.
I realize it has been more than 4 months since our last post and for that I apologize. This post will serve as a fill-in and hopefully I can get back on track to more frequent postings. Ideally 1 every couple weeks, but we will see.
As you may remember, Mexico Beach was ground zero for one of the most violent category 5 hurricanes in U.S. history. On October 18, 2018, hurricane Michael came ashore at Mexico Beach with sustained winds of about 160 mph, practically erasing the small resort town, and Tyndall Air Force Base just to the west. This was not the first hurricane to hit the area but it was the first Cat 5 and it forever changed the face of the “forgotten coast”.
When we arrived in October, we passed miles of broken or bent trees, and empty foundations where homes and businesses once stood. On the positive side, many homes have been rebuilt, hopefully stronger than before, and a number of eateries and businesses have reopened and morale is high.
Old Salt RV park was only a year old and was pretty much wiped out, leaving only power pedestals and the shower house/laundry which was built strong to double as a shelter. Shrubs and trees were replaced, new gravel brought in, and life moved on. The owner, Andrea, put in many hours getting her park ship-shape and back to being the premier park in the area. She has a husband and 2 teen daughters and decided to bring us in for the winter so she could have more time with them. This worked well for us: we wanted to come to Florida and the area Covid rate was super low.
We were able to explore the area from Panama City to the west, Apalachicola and Carrabelle to the east, and Blountstown and Tallahassee to the north. As you would expect we have been treated to fantastic fresh seafood at area restaurants. It has also been a treat to see the Gulf of Mexico on a daily basis and to be able to get our Vitamin D at the beach, which is only about 1,000 feet from the park.
Like all good things, our Florida winter comes to an end tomorrow (April 7th) and we head for our summer digs. This is where the musical notes mentioned at the beginning come in. We will be at the Devils Tower Golf Club this summer in Wyoming. Devils Tower is the national monument featured in the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, and the five notes played an integral role in the story. For you musicians, the second “Do” is down 1 octave. Click here to here the notes.
So we will be there for the summer, working a little, traveling around and sightseeing a little, and probably playing a lot of golf!