_11 March ‘09 Wednesday

It looks like we are in the beginning of a great spring as we leave DeFuniak Springs and drive down to Panama Beach, Florida.  The last few days have been topping out in the mid 70’s by noon and we’re seriously enjoying it while we have it.  We’re staying at St. Andrews State Park.  The park is at the end of a peninsula that includes one of the best beaches in the states…

_Panama City Beach, rated the best beach by the “Spring Breakers”, and they are here in mass.  It seems to be controlled mass, but they are here and having fun.  Yesterday we drove into Panama City to check-out this kayak company, but they apparently have gone out of business.  After checking out the streets of the city and the surrounding area, we drove back over the bridge to Panama City Beach.  This was our first time to “mingle” with the college crew that has come to the beach for their Spring break.  It’s not that we “mingled” on the streets and bars with them, we just drove down the beach road and checked out the action for awhile.  Our campground is running at max, and quite a few of the campers are here for the action of Spring Break.  Fortunately, the campers are keeping everything under control and we hardly know that they are here.  The beach area that we have been using is about a mile from the area that the big party goers are using.  MTV is here and has a huge part in putting together the programs that most are here for. 

We’ve headed to the beach each morning and get there in time to watch the largest group of surfers do their thing.  A couple of guys have their sit-on-top kayaks here and are having a lot of fun surfing the waves with them as well.  Today we saw something we’ve never seen before.  2 very large surf boards were out there, and the guys that were standing on top of them had a single large and long paddle.  They would be standing on the board waiting for the right wave, and then with the paddle they would make a turn, pick up speed with a quick push of the paddle and surf the wave all the way in. 

This morning we decided to do something different from what we’ve been doing here in Panama City.  Across the channel from where we are, is Shell Island.  They have a bunch of local tour boats that take the tourists over for the day for $18 pp and we thought we could enjoy a day of kayaking and save the $36.  In talking with a couple of the locals and some of the volunteers here at the campground, we felt comfortable in making the paddle across.  The big thing we had to watch out for was the Navy vessels and the container ships that head out this channel.  A little kayak could get lost in front of them real quick.  A couple of other obstacles  we had to face were the wakes of passing boats and the possible waves that might be hitting the beach as we arrive and depart.  Well all of that said the only thing we came across was a cargo ship that made a turn long before it got to us and, we had a few waves from passing boats that gave us a nice little ride.  Our stay on Shell Island was great.  We did see loads of shells, but 99.9% were broken.  That’s OK, we just wanted to see and enjoy the island and that’s what we did.  We’ve had a great work-out today and tomorrow, we head out for Montgomery, Alabama and a stop at Costco.  Saturday we head for Perry, Georgia for a week and take part in the FMCA (Family Motor Coach Association) Rally.

_7 March ‘09 Saturday

The last 3 or 4 days have kind of blended together.  This campground is one of the best we’ve been in for quite awhile.  The sites feel large, but if you were to get out and measure, it would probably show that they are the same as any other campground.  No matter, we are like a lot of the other campers here and feel that this is a “Four Star” campground that offers a nice lake, swimming pool, and, and, and...   We did take the kayak out into the lake the other day.  Once we were out there we started to notice these “sticks” sticking out of the water.  Fact is, the whole lake seemed to be covered with these “sticks”.  As we got closer to them we noticed that these sticks were in fact TREES !!!  Yep, this lake is a man-made lake and they just allowed the water to rise without taking the trees out.  Apparently they did a little trimming, but that only took the branches to a foot or less below the surface.  Other than that, just about every other tree in the lake, they left a “stick” about a foot above the surface.  We were “goosed” a few times running over the un-see’n, but over all we enjoyed a lazy paddle around the lake on a sunny afternoon. 

We also drove up to Blackwater River State Park as we heard that this was one of the best rivers around the area to kayak.  The park is quite large and offers paddles from as much as 4 days to as little as you might want for the day.  There is a canoe and kayaking company that has tours that they run on the Blackwater and we were going to stop in and see if there was something we might be interested in.  Unfortunately, when we got there, they had already left with their tour group for the day (at 9 am) and for some reason they were only offering a 1 ½ mile float.  So finding a place we could put in we hit the water.  Because we didn’t have a vehicle to drop us off further up stream, we decided we would paddle up current as far as our energy would allow.  We paddled up-stream for a little over an hour before we found a sandbar to pull up on.  After a little “R&R”

_we pushed off and enjoyed a lazy float back to the car.  On the way up river, we met 2 canoes that were part of the float that we had stopped by to get information on.  One of the canoes was occupied by Michelle and Ann from New York, and they were having a ball floating the river.

_They had just gotten back into the states from Mexico.  They had spent a couple of months down there climbing…floating seems pretty tame compared to climbing.  The Blackwater River has a fine white sand bottom that shows a darkish color of “tannin-stain” to the water.  It is quite a contrast with the pristine white of the sandbars deposited on the shores of the meandering river.  The Blackwater is one of the few remaining sand-bottom rivers in the South-eastern part of the states. 

_2 March ‘09 Monday

Once again we’ve moved on…  Sunday afternoon we moved into Florida and settled at the Sunset King Lake Resort.  This RV resort is about 7 miles outside of DeFuniak Springs and sits on the banks of King Lake and about 40 miles north of Fort Walton Beach. 

This afternoon we drove into DeFuniak Springs in search of groceries.  They told us that we had a choice of 3, Thriftway, Win Dixie, and Wal-Mart so today we chose Wal-Mart.  2 weeks ago we stocked the shelves and refrigerator, and it for some reason it cost us over $185.  Unfortunately neither one of us gave much thought to the bill coming to $185 until we got back to the coach and started to think about how much we spent…$185 DOLLARS !!!  We dug for the receipt and for some reason we couldn’t find it…  “Did we or Didn’t we SPEND THAT MUCH ????”  OK, what do you do ?  Not much except to spend a little more time checking on what we spend….  Well today we paid a more attention on what we got and what we spent. 

After filling the back seat with our purchases we headed back to see the sights around DeFuniak Springs.  Driving through town earlier we noticed some beautiful old homes surrounding the Lake DeFuniak. 

_With the city being developed in 1881 as a railroad town for the Pensacola & Atlantic (Louisville & Nashville) Railroad, and now having a population of only 7,000+- living here, they sure have a large number of beautiful old Victorian homes to show for it.  A lot of these homes circle the lake, and try as I might, I couldn’t do justice with a photo to show the beauty of it all.  There was one photo that I wish I had taken (I’ll get it later and post it here), and it was of the oldest library in Florida… OK, here is the DeFuniak Library...

_This beautiful building sits on the banks of Lake DeFuniak and is still an operating public library today.  When we looked inside this afternoon, we were asked if we would like a tour.  Mounted on the walls of the library, are a very old collection of ancient weapons, from knives to guns, from mesh armor to axes and much more.  Also they have this beautiful "music box".

_All of these were donated by local families who had collected these for years.  A note for this area that I find interesting is, Lake DeFuniak is one of two naturally round spring fed lakes in the world.  The other being located near Zurich, Switzerland…how about that ?  One more item of interest…  Each year, the Chautauqua assembly gathers

_in DeFuniak Springs to celebrate the history of the assembly and to carry on the tradition.  You might ask; What is there “tradition”? and who are the “Chautauqua”?...well, your going to have to Google to find out more

_27 February ‘09 Friday

Last Monday, Louise and I went back to NAS Pensacola to see the air museum.  We heard so much about this museum and how good it was, we just had to make a day of it.  Unbelievable, but the admission is FREE…  Not only is the admission free, so are the guided tours.  We joined in with about 20 others and thoroughly enjoyed the stories and knowledge that our guide passed on to us over the 2 hours we were with him.  Pat was a retired Navy aviator and flew a number of the airplanes on display during his career.  Not only did he know the museum well, he knew the planes that were there and their stories as well.  As you might know, NAS Pensacola is the summer Home Base for the Blue Angles.  As you drive through Pensacola you couldn't miss the fact that the Blue Angles are loved here.  They have schools, streets, and shops throughout town named after them.  I must admit, they deserve it...

_Obviously we had a great time and we look forward to going back sometime this week.  I also came across the Heavy One patch that we wore on our jackets and flight suits while we were at NAS Sanford, Florida.  Unfortunately they didn't have one for sale...so I took this picture instead. 

_Leaving the NAS (Naval Air Station), we tried hard to remember things about Pensacola from 1960, but absolutely nothing was familiar.  We even tried to find the apartment that we lived in, but to no avail…    It would have been nice, but it was just an apartment… 

Tuesday and Wednesday we just stayed close to the coach.  Louise wasn’t feeling well and I was getting tired of seeing a dirty coach.  I pulled out my ladder, buffer, cleaner, wax, and got busy. 

Thursday we drove into Pensacola to see a doctor and today we saw another and received the results.  All is well.