January 1, 2021 was a rainy day as we broke camp in Navarre and drove east for about 3 1/2 years towards our January campground outside Carrabelle, Florida. This area of the Florida Gulf Coast is called the Forgotten Coast because quite honestly, not many people think of this area when wanting to visit Florida and it’s beaches. The largest “cities” in the area are Port St. Joe and Apalachicola and the largest “resort/vacation” area is St. George Island. Your grocery store options are the IGA or the Piggly Wiggly. In other words, it’s a very quiet area of Florida even though it’s only about an hour south of Tallahassee, the state capital.
Our campground is right across the street from the very large and empty Carrabelle Beach. It’s a wonderful place to walk.
Carrabelle Beach RV Resort 
Dog walk on the beach 
Empty beach
A few days after our arrival, we drove over to Apalachicola to explore a few shops, check out some history, and of course, find some place to eat! Little known history fact – early refrigeration and air conditioning development was born in this area. Dr John Gorie was seeking a way to eliminate the effects of yellow fever and received one of the first patents around refrigeration back in the mid 1800’s. Due to COVID, the museum was not open but we visited the historic marker as well as the Trinity Church which he helped found.
Trinity Church
Meanwhile, back in Atlanta our grand babies had started walking! They had been trying a few steps while we visited over Christmas but in just a few weeks they had found their balance and were definitely on the move!
Weather this time of year along the panhandle can be cold, cloudy, foggy, and/or grey. When weather allowed, we have gotten out and explored and Jill has spent some time on her new electric trike. She peddles on her own most of the time but can use battery power as an assist if/when needed. And Dan has taken it out for a spin a time or two, getting it up to 12.1 mph on battery power alone. Not to be outdone, Jill was able to top out at over 13 mph!
When not speeding around on bikes, we also set out for a hike into an area of scrub pines and low growth just down the road from our campground. The area is officially called Tate’s Hell State Park. The story behind the name goes as follows:
A tale that has been told for many years recounts how Tate’s Hell Swamp got its name. Local legend has it that a farmer by the name of Cebe Tate, armed with only a shotgun and accompanied by his hunting dogs, journeyed into the swamp in search of a panther that was killing his livestock. Although there are several versions of this story, the most common describes Tate as being lost in the swamp for seven days and nights, bitten by a snake, and drinking from the murky waters to curb his thirst. Finally he came to a clearing near Carrabelle, living only long enough to murmur the words, “My name is Cebe Tate, and I just came from Hell.” Cebe Tate’s adventure took place in 1875 and ever since, the area has been known as Tate’s Hell, the legendary and forbidden swamp.
About half way thru our stay in Carrabelle, we had to head back to Destin to complete a repair job that was started before we left Navarre. We had an issue with our awning which provides shade over a large part of the right side of the RV. This awning is very temperamental and has had issues in the past. However, this time the issue was human error. While in Navarre, we had Lola detailed, something we do once a year to ensure she stays clean and shiny (as well as protected from the elements). Our detailer was awesome, spending all day on Lola to return her to her showroom glow. Unfortunately, he left a cleaning rag on the roof and later that rag was blown onto the extended awning without our knowledge. The next time the awning was retracted, in went that rag. Next time we tried to open, it completely jammed the awning and cracked the motor. Given COVID (which is blamed for all delays), the manufacturer was working shortened hours which meant getting replacement parts would take awhile. All of this caused us to travel back to Destin for a couple of days so the Mobile RV Tech who started the repair could complete it after he received all the parts. No worries, that gave us time for one more meal at one of our favorite restaurants as well as for Jill to get one more doctor visit out of the way.
Rag found inside awning 
The guilty rag! 
Hanging out in Destin
Back in Carrabelle, we took advantage of one of the rainy days to drive about 30 minutes over to the town of Panacea to visit a small Marine Specimen and Aquarium. This held living examples of undersea plant and animal life that was common in the area. They act as a living laboratory for marine biology college interns from Florida State and other universities while also supplying larger aquariums across the country including the one in Atlanta. It contained lots of small tanks, some of which were “touch tanks” allowing us to touch and even pick up specimens such as hermit crabs and large conch.
Touch tanks 
Large conch 
Grumpy fish 
Nurse sharks 
Eel 
Jill and a new friend 
Front of the Marine Specimen & Aquarium
We’ve shared in the past how we get mail and packages and usually all goes quite well. In fact, we’ve never had any major problems with getting our mail from our mail service (either having them scan the contents or actually forward the mail to us). But give the USPS a chance to mess things up and they just can’t help themselves. We had amassed a few documents at our mailbox and decided to have them shipped to us. We were only about 120 miles away and requested regular mail, but added tracking. This meant that it would take 4-5 days to reach us. Now, that may seem extreme to just go 120 miles. Little did we realize that actually it would take many more days to actually complete the journey. Based on the tracking data, here is where our package travelled:
- Departed Crestview on a Monday evening, arriving in Pensacola, Florida. Yes, instead of traveling 120 miles SSE, the package instead went 52 miles further west.
- The next day, maybe realizing it’s error, the USPS turned our package around and sent it east to Tallahassee, Florida (only about 50 miles north of us!). Seeing this, we were hopeful that it was now on the way.
- After hanging around Tallahassee for over a day (wouldn’t want it to actually arrive AHEAD of schedule), it decided to continue east to Jacksonville, Florida. Yep, our package had now traveled the entire length of the panhandle of Florida or about 360 miles!
- After resting in Jacksonville for another day, the package arrived in Apalachicola which was a mere 19 miles from our campground. Surely it would now make the last leg to us.
- Nope, having arrived early in the morning in Apalachicola, it decided to head back over to Tallahassee to visit for the weekend!
- Finally on early Monday morning (a week since it’s journey began), it returned to Apalachicola, arriving just 12 minutes before hopping on the local mail carrier’s vehicle for delivery!
In summary, our package took which should have been a few days, 120 mile trip and turned it into an 827 mile trip which would have taken 14 hours to drive and sat around for another 6+ days when not in transit. Below is a better visualization of the trip:
January marks our full-timing anniversary. On the 9th we marked the start of our 3rd year living in the RV and the following week, January 16th, marked the start of life on the road when we left Atlanta in 2019. Amazing what we have seen and done since.
This January was also historic given the presidential election and activities following. We won’t get into politics on this blog but at least one positive/amusing thing that came out of the election was Bernie and his gloves! There were so many memes going around, you couldn’t keep up. One of our favorites is below:
January also brought an opportunity to catch up with another long ago whitewater paddling friend, Tonya Holmes. Tonya was staying on St. George Island for the month so we were able to catch up with her and her friend Marilyn several times and relive long ago paddling and camping tales!
Just before departure we had another beautiful day and this allowed us to ride our bikes down to a local lighthouse to visit the light keeper’s home and climb the lighthouse (well, at least Dan did!).
128 steps to the top 
Original Fresnel lense 
Dan at the top 
View from the top of St George Sound
January 31st was to be a rainy day so we did all our packing up on the 30th in prep for our departure on February 1st. Next stop, Williston, Florida near the cities of Gainesville and Ocala where we’ll spend the month.