Day 21: Panama City Beach, FL

Stop 17 / State 9:  Panama City Beach, FL

We had no idea that we were so close to Florida yesterday.  This morning we headed East from Gulf Shores through Orange Beach.  At the end of town, we crossed over the intercoastal waterway and entered Florida mid-span.  Fortunately, we found this somewhat graffitied welcome sign a little farther down the road.

Today's trip was 128 miles but was in traffic on surface streets most of the way.  We followed the coast, occasionally driving the length of some of the gulf islands, and occasionally crossing the intercoastal to drive on the mainland for a stretch.  We even slipped inland for a bit to drive through the tall pines of a National Forest.

We finally reached Panama City Beach.  As soon as we got set up, we crossed the road and walked out to the beach.  There's a storm brewing in the Gulf and all of the lifeguard stands were flying double red flags.  We hadn't seen that before so Kristen looked it up:  "Water closed to public.  Illegal to go into the water.  Fined by law enforcement".  I didn't really want to swim here anyway.  I didn't see a single shark or ray.

Looking West:

Looking East:

We went back for the car and drove up the beach to a pier that we'd passed on the way in:

A little ways onto the pier, looking West:

A little ways onto the pier, looking East:

West from the end of the (very long) pier:

East from the end of the pier:

We'd noticed a nice looking restaurant across the road and decided to run over there for dinner.  Dinning was outdoors with a wonderfully refreshing sea breeze.

The view from our table:

Finally, our trailer (or course):

-J-