Florida Panhandle

We drove almost 500 miles from Myakka to Freeport and never left the state of Florida! What a long and wide state! The Hausauer’s (Barry, Rhody and their Aussie, Ruger) rode in the RV that they rented for a week to get an idea of this lifestyle.

Here’s an interesting picture that we received along the way:

How the heck did we get that one of both of us heading north on I-75? Our Myakka neighbors, Jan and Bob Oakley, were heading south and got it for us! Very cool!

After getting set up at the Calypso Cove campground,

I explained to our traveling partners that campgrounds are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get. This one was dark chocolate with coconut sprinkles – not my favorite. However, it was the only one that we could find in the area, so a lousy piece of chocolate is better than no sweets at all.

We wanted to stay in this area because we had heard from our friend, Kathy Jaroch, that she really enjoyed it last year when she spent some time there. The region is called South Walton on the Emerald Coast located between Panama City Beach and Pensacola. This 26-mile stretch of white sand beaches is beautiful with the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Mexico as the backdrop. There are sixteen coastal towns (east to west): Inlet Beach, Rosemary Beach, Seacrest, Alys Beach, Watersound, Seagrove, Seaside, Watercolor, Grayton Beach, Blue Mountain, Santa Rosa Beach, Gulf Place, Dune Allen, Sandestin, Miramar Beach, and Seascape. A timber and paper company called St. Joe controlled over one million acres here and when they ceased those operations in the 1990’s they became a land development company. That’s how this entire area was created and controlled in the past few decades. Each town has been created with a particular flair; Rosemary Beach looks Bavarian-style, Seaside offers pastel-colored beach cottages, Alys Beach has white stucco Greek style, and Grayton Beach is more urban with funky bars and shops. So we wanted to explore the area for both Barry’s and my 60th birthday celebrations.

The first night we headed out for dinner in the coastal town of Grayton Beach and stopped at The Red Bar. I put our name in and it was a 2 1/2 hour wait. The place across the street, Chiringo, was only 1 1/2 hours and there was four seats opened at the bar so we stayed there. After about 20 minutes a table opened in the bar area so we were able to sit there and order food. I have to tell you that the food was unexpectedly delicious! Guacamole and Caribbean style wings for appetizers and a blackened grouper sandwich for the main course.

We decided to check out some the towns the following day and we started in Rosemary Beach on the east side. Quaint town styled after Bavaria in Germany.

We walked (ok, I hobbled) around to check out the scene. Beautiful! There was a small park near the water that was hosting a “tie dye and spin” event for the children. Behind that were wooden steps that lead to the beach and the turquoise waters.

The beaches were lined with chairs and umbrellas and with people getting tanned.

Next we drove through Alys Beach, which is still under construction, but you can get an idea of what it is going to be by the entrance monuments:

Should be a wonderful place, albeit expensive, when it gets completed!

Continuing west, we drove through Seaside and took this picture:

Reminded me of New England shingle-style architecture.

We continued driving and stopped for lunch in the town of Watersound. There was an area called “The Hub” that had permanent food stands encircling a courtyard. After looking at the different options, we decided on the Macho Taco (it didn’t hurt that the owner explained all of his wonderful creations to us).

Of course, one of the stands was a bar so we ordered up some “Ranch Waters” for the group:

A drink that we learned about in Houston last year. If you haven’t tried one, I highly recommend it!

Afterwards, we headed back to the coaches to let the dogs out. Katrina and Rhody took them to a local off-leash dog park so that they could play.

They sure have fun playing together!

When we drove through Santa Rosa Beach we saw a place that was having dueling pianos that night called Old Florida Fish House. So we had to go there for dinner and the entertainment.

The food was good (sushi for us), the service left something to be desired, and the entertainment was a lot of fun! It reminded us of going to the Red Red Piano Bar in Chicago.

The following day we left our place and headed to the west end of South Walton to work our way back to Grayton Beach. The traffic there was horrible and we couldn’t find parking to get out and see the sights. It seemed a lot more touristy to us. One of our old neighbors from Ambria in Mundelein, IL, Kristin and Rob Joy, have a sister that rents beach houses in the area. We contacted Kristin to see if we could drive by and see the residences as we were nearby. After she told as where and the street code to get there, we parked the truck. Her nephew, Ryan, was working the lunch-hour at a nearby restaurant called Surf Hut.

We walked the beach for about 1/2 mile to get there:

It was a tiring hobble in the sand for me! However, well worth it as the views were stunning!

We found the restaurant and went in to eat.

We even got a table in Ryan’s area so we got to meet him. It was fun calling him out by name when he had never met us! The look on his face was precious as you could tell he was racking his brain to recall our faces. After we let him off the hook and told him how we “knew” him we all got in on the laugh. He was a fantastic server, recommending food options and bringing us food that we didn’t even order! To boot, his manager allowed him to give us his employee discount!

What a nice young man!

Katrina, Barry and Rhody were nice enough to walk the beach back and get the truck for me. Yay, no more hobbling along the beach!

We went back to the coaches to let the dogs out. We had wonderful intentions of going out for dinner, but tiredness hit us and nappies were required. We did get enough time later in the evening at the Hausauer’s for a drink, or two.

This picture will give you an indication of how we all felt:

Tired!

We had an outstanding week traveling with the Hausauer’s! Thank y’all for renting the RV and traveling with us! We had a wonderful time!

The next morning, Hausauer’s were heading back to Palm Beach and we were heading west, next stop Louisiana.