Highway 319 south out of Tallahassee is a nice, smooth, wide two lane highway that cuts through miles of dense pine forests.
Our destination was the Ho Hum RV Park in Carabelle, Florida. We checked into site A40, on the waterfront, with the best view out of our front window that we've had so far this trip!
The view of the Gulf is amazing! Several of the campers are fishermen, and have been catching everything from Sharks to Catfish to Manta Rays from the end of the pier.
Monday, today, we drove into downtown metropolitan Carrabelle to explore the hidden treasures therein, like the World's Smallest Police Station. Hey, every town has to have a gimmick, right?
Just west of Carrabelle is the town of East Point, which is even smaller than Carrabelle, but from there a causeway runs out to St George Island. This was at one time a huge Turpentine producing area, with forests of the type of Pine tree needed to make the odd smelling liquid. One of the trails we took Sasha on winds through such a forest, and the smell of the Turpentine wafting through the air was almost overpowering, but it sure cleared our heads! The temp was in the high 70's, but the humidity was a bit high, so it felt pretty warm on the trail. Sasha, being mostly black, didn't like it at all, but was a real trooper all through the two mile hike. We had water for her, and we stopped in the shade from time to time, but she still needed to be carried most of the way back to the car.
These trees have an unusually large bark pattern, and some of the trees still have scars remaining from being "hacked" years ago. Back in the day, resin was collected from these trees and processed into Turpentine. This particular area of trees is now protected by the state of Florida.
We left St George Island with a powerful hunger after our hiking, so we headed three miles west of East Point to the town of Apalachicola. A small town of about 3,000 inhabitants, it is named for a subgroup of Seminole Indians that lived in the area. The name is loosely translated as "the people on the other side of the river". This probably refers to the Apalachicola River that empties into the gulf here, and is navigable all the way to Atlanta.
Apalachicola is also (not very) well known as the town where John Gorrie invented the modern method of cooling air. In 1848, Dr. Gorrie was trying to find a method of reducing the temperature of his fever patients. A museum in town commemorates this factoid, and contains a replica of his "ice machine".
Apalachicola provides more than 90% of Florida's oyster harvest, and about 10% of the oysters used in the rest of the country. Today, fishing and tourism are the main industries in town.
We still needed a place to eat, so a quick drive down by the dock yielded the Up The Creek Oyster Bar. The "creek" is the Apalachicola River, and we watched the shrimpers come in while we ate oysters and crab cakes for lunch.
On the way back to Carrabelle, we noticed a perfect Florida beach house tucked back into the trees. What a jewel!
Now we know why so many people vacation in this area called The Big Bend because the Gulf Coast makes a huge turn from East-West to North-South. It's laid back here, without a lot of spring break type tourists, just a group of easy going locals and a lot of seafood!
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