Happy birthday in heaven, Mom! Both of us had a rough night sleeping, so we were up early. We took our time getting ready and pulled out around 9:30. It is a 225 mile drive today and hopefully without any mishaps. It was a warm, hazy morning with a temp of 83 degrees (feels like 92). We crossed the causeway over Escambia Bay east of Pensacola.
I-10 was lightly traveled on this Monday. Diesel fuel prices rose as we continued east in the Panhandle.
We picked up Highway 69 going south for 15 miles and then Highway 20 going east for 16 miles where we changed time zones to Eastern Standard Time at the Apalachicola River.
We took Highway 65 going south towards the Gulf of Mexico through the Apalachicola National Forest for 54 miles. Traffic was pretty nonexistent.
Highway 65 dead-ends into coastal Highway 98 which would take us to the town of Carrabelle Beach.
Winds were blowing out of the southeast bringing the waves into shore.
People were at the public beach across the street from the campground. We pulled into the parking lot there to unhook the Jeep.
While we were unhooking, a man came over to us to “duck” us. I was so excited to be “ducked”! On this whole trip, we never got ducked once, so this made my day!
From there, we pulled into the Carrabelle Beach Resort at 3:00 (now Eastern time). We lost an hour with the time change. We have been here quite a few times before and enjoyed it every time.
We checked in at the office and were given site #55, a drive-in forward site.
We have a nice view of the beach for at least a day until our neighbor next door arrives.
We took our evening walk around 8:00 after it cooled off a little. There are quite a few empty sites, so the campground is far from full. Upon returning to the bus, we watched a movie outside until the no-see-ums started coming out. We are spending 3 nights here, so we plan to visit some of our favorite places and discover a few new ones.