May 18, 2006

We are currently in Daphne, Alabama.  This is South East of Mobile, Alabama, just a short distance from the Gulf of Mexico.  We left Quincy, Florida and headed South West.  We picked up route 20 and followed that for quite a distance.  I must say, that part of Florida doesn't have a whole lot of anything there.  There are a few pictures below of that area of Florida.  The trees mostly aren't all that high, as the soil seems to be very sandy.  Even the grass seems difficult to grow.  We did pass a couple of farms today, but not too many.  One of the most amazing things to us was that many of the side roads are dirt.  They are not paved more than 20 feet off the road we were on.  I just wasn't expecting to see that in Florida.  We continued to Ft. Walton Beach and then picked up route 98 and headed west.  We are not beach people, and Ft. Walton was no exception.  Too many people, too much commercialization, etc, etc.  No danger of us moving to a beach with all the stuff that goes with it.  Anyhow, there are a few pictures of areas around Ft. Walton Beach.  It was worth a drive through, but not a place for us to be returning any time soon.  On the  bright side, we found that most of the drive today, gas was running $2.87 a gallon, down to $2.77.  Finally, we saw one station with gas at $2.66.  I filled up.  After we left there, the price went back up.  Filled up with about 38 gallon. Figures out to 8.84 mpg.  Hey, the area down here is mostly flat, so if we subtracted the gas the generator used, we would be over 9 mpg.  Not too bad for stop and go driving.   We  entered into Alabama in the very southern end, and moved north a few miles, and settled in  Daphne, Alabama.  We're sitting here, and some guy pulled in beside us with a white Van, and was piddling around for quite a while.  Eventually, it became apparant that he was going to go to bed in this thing.  I saw a blanket go up behind the front seat, and he went to bed.  I guess he's one of those "stealth" campers.  There are 2 pages of pictures again tonight.  Hope they are fairly visible, and you enjoy them.  Time for bed.

Anybody need a Pecan Picker?  Found one this morning in a hardware store.

One of the views of what Florida looks like along route 20.

Another shot along Route 20.   The picture speaks for itself.

Here is another picture.  What can I say?

And another one.  These trees are actually fairly tall, however they do not seem to get very large in diameter, even at the base.

This is a picture of route 20, and although it doesn't show up very well, there are banks on each side fo the road that is about a 10 foot drop.  If you look close, you can see on the right, that it drops off, and guess what, no guardrails.

Here is another picture with a slightly different angle like the above pic.  The bank actually shows up better in the last picture.

Here is a logging truck along route 20.  If you take a good look at the logs, you can see that they are not very large in diameter.

Picture of a boat used by Law Enforcement in Florida.

This is one of the roads along route 20 that is not paved.  You can see how the color changes shortly after the road turns.

How about an Oyster Bar, with a boat up on a couple of poles.

Here's a view of the gulf of Mexico.

And another one with a view of a bridge in the distance.

A view of crossing a bridge, with an inlet from the Gulf.

This is an airplane museum, with several planes out front.

It is difficult to see, but the first black plane behind the van is one of the Blackbirds, which was a spyplane the US used for years.  This thing flew about 3 times the speed of sound.  Now that's fast.

Pictures on Page 2.

Back to Texas 2006 Index