Apalachicola and the Ugly Mermaid

Sunday, March 28, 2010


Day 2  Monticello FL  to  Navarre FL - 250 Miles

Apalachicola Waterfront

 We got our morning exercise in by walking around the campground and even venturing out onto the rural road that runs by it.   This troubled the buzzards that were  dining on 'possum tartar' at the middle of the road cafe.  Certainly have seen our share of roadkill this trip and it's only the morning of the second day.  I even thought (for a nanosecond)  about adding a 'roadkill meter' to the blog.  Nah.

Packing up

All you have to say is,  "Wanna go for a walk?"

We left the area 20 miles or so east of Tallahassee, mid morning and drove under  I10 on US19 south to US27 (Apalachee Pky) west to Tallahassee where we picked up US 319 south and finally US98.  This is a lovely drive that we have taken many times.  We follow it through the little oystering towns in the 'armpit' area of the north gulf coast of Florida all the way to Pensacola.  It continues east and south, following the coast until near Homosassa where it turns inland, snaking through the state, along the east side of Okeechobee until it runs out of land between West Palm Beach and Lake Worth on the east shore of the state.  We've driven parts of this route, I think it would be nice to drive the entire length someday...and stay OFF the interstates!

Along this stretch of highway is the charming, historic town of Apalachicola .  Doesn't the word just roll off your tongue?  We all know how to pronounce it thanks to Jim Cantore on the weather channel!

We have driven through here too many times to remember, without stopping.  Jim is one of those, 'Gotta Make Time' drivers...I need the 'rolling eyes' emoticons here.   Fortunately, he was hungry so we had to stop.  We walked a few blocks of the downtown section near the waterfront.  It was a nice break and we enjoyed stretching our legs and stopping in some of the quirky shops.

Apalachicola's dual purpose planters

Perhaps the world's homliest (and lopsided)  mermaid! 

Floats at a funky, nautical gift shop

We were headed to Panama City Beach, but as usual, it didn't happen.  Previous trips to stay there were thwarted by 'Bike Week' crowds.  We already knew that it was too early in the year for that but....it's Spring Break time!  Nothing against the cyclist or the college kids, but it's not what we are looking for at this point in our lives.  We drove through, watched the bands of kids, the trash cans overflowing with beer cans, the beer tents and the cops on every corner and shouting on their  PA systems for the kids to turn the music in their cars down...and thought that we'd ride on.  Plan B was Navarre.

The last few weeks of stress showed up around Destin, only a half hour from Navarre, when we got into a shouting match with each other over a trivial matter.  For a while we were both thinking that this may be our shortest trip.  Ever.  Wouldn't that have been a hoot?  But we calmed down and came to our senses by bedtime.

It's chilly here but the weather is fore-casted to be sunny for the remainder of the week.