This post covers my travel along the panhandle of Florida: Panama City, St. George Island, and Cedar Key. In an ongoing effort to bring posts closer to real time, this entry consists primarily of photos with a few captions thrown in. I temporarily break that rule, though, to describe meeting some new friends.
This sight greeted me as I drove into Panama City.
Then I figured out it housed the Ripley’s Believe It or Not. I’d chosen my RV park right across from all the beachfront restaurants and clubs, hoping for some bar scene and live entertainment, but everything was closed for the season.
Starting the next day I had a reservation for three nights in the campground on St. George Island off of Apalachicola, on the recommendation of my friend Jimmy. I truly loved the peace and scenery on the island. However, for the first time, I had to install the bug screen:
I spent a very pleasant afternoon at the bar below:
In spite of my “few words” rule, I have to memorialize meeting two lasting friends on St. George. As I was pulling into the St. George campground, I looked in my driver’s side mirror and thought I was seeing double: there was a near duplicate of my van right behind me. As soon as I’d stopped, I raced over and introduced myself. Sure enough, it not only looked like my van, it had been converted by the same outfitters, Sportsmobile. Its owners were Mufit and Verde (Turkish names). We exchanged a few pleasantries then, but had a much longer conversation the next day. As it turned out, Mufit is a university professor, like me, and in computer science, which was a large part of my work in electrical engineering. I remarked that I think Sportsmobiles appeal to an engineering mindset. Verde had attended college at UCLA, and so knew Southern California, where I lived for 30 years, quite well. Though they were on a fast track down to the Keys, we’ve stayed in touch. I hope to either visit them, or that our traveling paths cross again in the future.
After three nights on St. George Island, I turned the corner south toward Tampa and stayed at Cedar Key for two nights
I had an opportunity to break out the awning for the first time,
and to try out my compact grill (it worked wonderfully).
The Cedar Key waterfront
and Cedar Key downtown:
Honestly, this sign mystified me:
until I figured out the local high schoolers are known as “The Sharks”.
My next stop along the Gulf was Sarasota, where I ended up spending several weeks. That will be the topic of my next post.
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