May 16-17, 2008 - Navarre, Florida
The day was another stormy day, so we hung out at the campground, stretching our legs between weather fronts. We drove back into Niceville, Florida (sounds like a Jim Carey movie!) to pick up the motor after being repaired. While out that way, we ventured over to Destin beach. I’m not quite sure what the big draw is. Perhaps on a better day, it would reveal that beautiful turquoise water against the white sand. I guess we’ll only experience that through pictures.
Navarre Beach, directly on the Gulf of Mexico was desolate and eerie. We began to notice that all of the houses were newly constructed or under construction. The white sand beaches were speckled with what appeared to be black charcoal from beach fires. A closer look revealed that the black pieces were really chunks of black top and that the road that we were on was newly paved. We stopped to get gas and inquired about what we had observed. The attendant said that the beach had a direct hit from hurricane Ivan three years prior. It had toppled all but three homes and pealed back the road bed, scattering it along the sand for miles...
The rain of the storm fell all night long followed by howling winds. The community of Navarre was holding Founder’s Day celebrations over the weekend on the beach. I was told that it was a yearly event and something that everyone anticipates…art festival, food, music and fireworks. I was looking forward to witnessing all of the fanfare and local color. In the morning (Saturday May 17th) however, we opened our trailer door to find a flood in our campsite. Bruce called the office for help. A man was sent out immediately to unplug the storm drain. Apparently everything that we had stored under the trailer had floated and plugged up the storm drain. Luckily our door mat and everything else was retrieved and not washed away. The water drained and the day was spent cleaning up and drying out instead of playing on the beach.
Luckily the skies opened up a gorgeous, sunny, clear day. Being the packer that I am, I was bound to utilize every space. We had packed a couple of ice chests, one of which is very large and used for boating. I filled one with kayak life jackets and the larger one had extra pillows, a quilt and our beach towels. With everything outside showing a water mark of about 6 inches, I decided half way through the day to check the contents of the ice chests…assuming of course that they were water tight!...WRONG! Everything inside was floating in water! How the heck that happened I have no idea, but what I did know, was that I had a half of a day left to dry out everything. I got out every folding chair and table that I could find and draped some form of soggy linen over them! Most of the campgrounds have a “no clothes line” rule, so that the place is left looking tidy. Well, we had a real circus going on
in our site…and a site it was.
By days end, everything was dry, folded and stored. That night we enjoyed a BBQ and watched fire works from the campground dock…silently thinking that it was a wonderful end to our life in Florida!
Navarre Beach, directly on the Gulf of Mexico was desolate and eerie. We began to notice that all of the houses were newly constructed or under construction. The white sand beaches were speckled with what appeared to be black charcoal from beach fires. A closer look revealed that the black pieces were really chunks of black top and that the road that we were on was newly paved. We stopped to get gas and inquired about what we had observed. The attendant said that the beach had a direct hit from hurricane Ivan three years prior. It had toppled all but three homes and pealed back the road bed, scattering it along the sand for miles...
The rain of the storm fell all night long followed by howling winds. The community of Navarre was holding Founder’s Day celebrations over the weekend on the beach. I was told that it was a yearly event and something that everyone anticipates…art festival, food, music and fireworks. I was looking forward to witnessing all of the fanfare and local color. In the morning (Saturday May 17th) however, we opened our trailer door to find a flood in our campsite. Bruce called the office for help. A man was sent out immediately to unplug the storm drain. Apparently everything that we had stored under the trailer had floated and plugged up the storm drain. Luckily our door mat and everything else was retrieved and not washed away. The water drained and the day was spent cleaning up and drying out instead of playing on the beach.
Luckily the skies opened up a gorgeous, sunny, clear day. Being the packer that I am, I was bound to utilize every space. We had packed a couple of ice chests, one of which is very large and used for boating. I filled one with kayak life jackets and the larger one had extra pillows, a quilt and our beach towels. With everything outside showing a water mark of about 6 inches, I decided half way through the day to check the contents of the ice chests…assuming of course that they were water tight!...WRONG! Everything inside was floating in water! How the heck that happened I have no idea, but what I did know, was that I had a half of a day left to dry out everything. I got out every folding chair and table that I could find and draped some form of soggy linen over them! Most of the campgrounds have a “no clothes line” rule, so that the place is left looking tidy. Well, we had a real circus going on
in our site…and a site it was.
By days end, everything was dry, folded and stored. That night we enjoyed a BBQ and watched fire works from the campground dock…silently thinking that it was a wonderful end to our life in Florida!
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