Apparently I don’t have any problems adjusting from Charlotte’s close embrace to the expanses of my room at the B&B. I slept like a lamb.
Breakfast is actually pretty good, home cooked cheesey grits that were fantastic, fruit, bacon, sausage, eggs, coffee and juice.
Happily content and well rested it’s off to check out the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park, home of the retired USS Alabama and other assorted military complex machinery.
Now I’m not a fan of conflict and the huge amounts the US spend on the military (esp when there is so much poverty in the country, though I digress), but the park is relatively interesting. You get to walk on, around and in both the battleship and a retired sub, as well as walk through a hall that has various fighter planes including a predecessor of the U2 spyplane.
The visitors are predominantly military families, educating/indoctrinating their children into that way of thinking. Now I must state that I am not dissing anyone who actually serves – I have the utmost respect for each of them, it’s the political and budgetary pat of things I am uncomfortable with.
Overall the museum takes a couple of hours to walk around, the biggest impact coming after you walk through the sub and see exactly how small and cramped the spaces are. Submariners are a different sort of folk, that’s for sure.
From here it’s due east along the coast – towards Florida
It’s a beautiful drive along some backroads, through small towns and beachside communities. I stop at the highly recommended Boss Oyster which sits on the Apalachicola River. They serve oysters caught fresh from the river and chilled on the boat, which they freshly shuck to order. There are around 18 different options, and I manage to get through 2 dozen in various styles from fresh to oven baked, to grilled. They are absolutely delicious and I consider a 3rd dozen, but in the end sense prevails and I decline.
I make my way slowly further east, and I am struck by how pretty some of the communities are – there seem to be mandated rules that all houses are painted in a soft pastel accented by white painted window frames. And they are all immaculately maintained. It is a slow drive – single lane in each direction , sometimes as little as 30 m from the water, with people walking around in swimwear carrying towels and the like. Think any small coastal town.
Finally I get to Panama Beach, which is a Gold Coast apartment, hotel and amusement park strip, and the traffic massively increases. There are people everywhere, gangs of kids, some in cars, some on hired 3 wheel motorbikes, and the police are everywhere. It takes me a while to work out why – it’s still spring break and the place is full of kids who haven’t gone further south to the Florida spring break icons like Miami Beach.
It’s ugly,the place is overrun with loud drunk kids (HS and College I suppose) so it’s not particularly inviting. Plus I don’t really want to feel like a Toolie (a ref toSchoolies week back home). Maybe 25 years ago, but no longer.
I finally find a place a little out of town, down a backstreet, where I can smell the ocean and settle in for a peaceful night well away from the debauchery for once.
More tomorrow.
