Lena & Gabe's Excellent Adventure (Days 7 & 8)

The last 2 days of our trip:




On Friday morning we woke up to the storm. Gabe and I cuddled up in the tent and had a long snuggle fest. Then we got up and went to the beach. Perdido Key is a very narrow strip of land, so if you stood in the right place, you could see the ocean on both sides. We’d been on the Gulf side up until then, but Gabe decided he wanted to explore the bay side. So we went to that side and walked along the beach. Gabe loved watching the sandpipers skittering along in their weird way, and the pelicans gliding over the water and diving for fish. It was all very nice until we came upon a dead octopus. Gabe thought that was just amazing, and I’d never seen one up close, so we went and looked at it. Then we noticed a big jellyfish in the water…and then we saw dozens more, all along the beach in the water and on the sand. They were humongous! We came across the behemoth one, about twelve inches across, and I had a stick so I opened up the ‘skirt’ and let Gabe see the tentacles. That sort of freaked him out, and he wanted to go back. He had lots of questions about jellyfish the rest of the day.

We swam a few times, jumping in the water for about ten seconds each time, which Gabe loved. Unfortunately, we both got sunburned that day, too. In the afternoon we walked the mile back to the car and went into town to get some hotdogs for our campfire. It was supposed to rain again that night, and it was cloudy off and on all day, but we were hoping for a little bit of time for a fire first. We walked back to the campsite, took a little nap, watched the most amazing sunset I think I’ve ever seen (of course my phone battery had died and I couldn’t take pictures, grrr). Then we dug a pit and tried to light a fire.

Okay, first of all, our wood had gotten wet in the rain the night before. Secondly, our paper had gotten wet TWICE and never fully dried from the rain the first night we camped at the state park. Then it had gotten damp again Thursday night. And if you’ve ever been to the beach, you know that nothing dries there. Nothing. Ever.

So we crumpled up our soggy damp paper and put our damp wood on top and about 5 pieces of kindling we’d found along the beach. I lit the paper about fifty times and every time it only smoldered and went out. I was getting really desperate. I hadn’t carried that huge bag of wood down the beach for nothing. FINALLY a piece of paper caught fire, and I lit about five others with the flame. They burned for about one minute and then went out. I was about to scream in frustration, but I moved some logs around instead, hoping that all the paper hadn’t burned and left us with a bunch of big, damp logs and nothing to start them with. And suddenly, a flame flickered up from the smoldering paper. We frantically fed pieces of cardboard into the flame, and eventually, our fight started up. It looked like the wood was burning really fast, so we started cooking hotdogs immediately. They kept getting charred, but we managed to eat a few. I put the last two pieces of wood on the fire and they lasted…for hours. We didn’t have any marshmallows, so Gabe decided we should roast dried figs on the fire, so we did that a while. Then Gabe looked at me and said, “This is the best night of my whole life.” And it was all worth it.

We threw a couple hotdogs on the fire so Gabe could see them turn black, which he thought was pretty cool. He also enjoyed poking them with his skewer stick, and lighting his skewer on fire and poking it into the sand to watch it extinguish. He sat in my lap and we huddled into the warmth when it got chilly on the beach. The fire lasted a long, long time, and I let Gabe stay up late until all the flames died out. He got to dump a bucket of water on the coals, which he also loved. And fortunately for us, it did not rain at all that night.

On Saturday morning we got up early and watched the most amazing sunrise while we packed up our stuff. I wanted to make it back to Arkansas that day, but it was such a long drive I thought we’d stop in Little Rock. But we left so early that we got back to Little Rock by 6pm, and it was so early that I thought I’d just stick it out. We drove 14 hours…remind me never to do that again. It was awful, and Gabe got bored, and we were both sore from riding so long. We got back late that night, ending our epic road trip. And we both survived.

Lena & Gabe's Excellent Adventure (Day 6)

I lacked internet access most of the last few days, so I'll try to catch up real quick.

Day 6 (Thursday), we drove the short distance from Destin to Perdido Key. For once, not an entire day spent driving! It was wonderful. We got to the beach in the early afternoon. The ranger took our money and told us the camping was "primitive."
I said, "Great!"
He looked at me like I was insane, and told me that we'd have to walk a mile down the beach to the camping area.
No problem!
And then he said that before we got to the beach, we'd have to walk half a mile down the road from the parking lot to the walkway to the beach.
Also, no problem.
I asked if we could have a campfire and where we could get some wood. Didn't want to repeat the camping experience from the prior night. The ranger told us to go to the local Winn-Dixie (I didn't even know those really existed anymore) and buy some. So, we drove down and got two bags of wood. Let me just say that 25lbs might not sound like a lot, but it's heavy. Really heavy. Especially when it's encased in tough plastic with a handle made of the same tough plastic that threatens to rip through your skin as you carry it.
We got back to the beach, parked, and began our walk. I began to wish I'd listened when the ranger stressed again that I'd have to walk a mile on a soft sand beach. While carrying two sleeping bags, a gallon of water, a bag of food, and 25 lbs of wood. And Gabe had the tent in his backpack and a bag of paper for the fire. It was a long, long mile.
Finally we saw a sign: CAMPING BEYOND THIS POINT ONLY.

I staggered up to the sign like a dying man in a movie who sees water, dropped my bags, and thought about collapsing on top of them. Instead, I went back to meet Gabe, who had fallen far behind. I carried his bag (so light!) and we looked around the camping area. It was basically a deserted white sand beach with dunes as far as you could see. It felt like we'd been dropped on a deserted island. Once we got our tent set up, we ran down and jumped in the water....for about 15 seconds. It was maybe 59 degrees. Maybe.

Gabe played on the beach while I napped and took pictures of the beautiful area. We watched the sunset (gorgeous), ate some of our food, and went to bed early that night. We did not burn that 25lb bag of wood. We left it beside the tent.

That night, it poured rain. The tent didn't flood too bad, and it was kind of nice and cozy lying there with the rain beating down and the tent threatening to blow away, listening to the waves smash against the shore and hoping it didn't turn into a hurricane.

Lena & Gabe's Excellent Adventure (Day 3)

Yesterday entailed a whole lot more driving. But we did stop along the way a lot more. Even just little stops, like to go to Walgreens and get milk, or to get gas, or check my oil. For some reason, my oil-guzzling car didn't seem as thirsty yesterday, and I drove all day without having to add more oil.

In the morning, we got up and had the 'breakfast' provided by our hotel. Then we got on the road. I kept seeing things I wanted to take pictures of, but of course I couldn't while I was driving! It was frustrating to miss all those good sights. Anyway, we stopped at the Florida welcome center when we arrived and took a few pictures and looked at our map. Turns out the Florida panhandle is a lot longer than I thought. Plus, we got on Highway 98 so we could drive along the coast, which was pretty but ended up being really slow because of all the traffic and going through towns every 5 minutes.

At one point, we'd been driving for a few hours without stopping, and Gabe saw the ocean and said, "Can we go there?" So I just pulled over and we walked down to this tiny stretch of beach behind a restaurant. The water was nasty and full of seaweed and floating....stuff...but the sand was clean and white and Gabe loved playing in it. We drove through Ft. Walton and Destin, where we stayed last time. The sand was so white it looked like dunes of snow as we drove past. We stopped and got Gabe some sand toys and a hoodie.

Ryan was going to meet us, but we didn't make it close enough to Sarasota, so he didn't want to drive up. But he told us to stop in Apalachicola, which he said was supposed to be nice. We got there just before sunset. Gabe and I were both tired and grumpy from traveling so much, but we got out and ran down a long wooden dock to see the sunset. The dock extended out into the water, and we met a disabled Vietnam veteran who sits on the dock fishing all day. He talked to us a lot and let Gabe reach in his bait bucket and touch his bait fish. The sunset was beautiful, and we'd stretched our legs, so we went up to a tiny playground and played until it got dark.

Then we set out again. Gabe was hungry for some real food, so we looked for a place to eat. We were driving along this dark empty highway, and even the tiny towns were closed up when we drove through. Then, randomly, we came upon this cantina all lit up in the middle of nowhere. I wasn't sure it was a restaurant, so I checked it out. It wasn't a bar, so we went in and I got a giant fajita thing, and Gabe got a giant cheeseburger and enough fries to feed 8 people...for only $3.75. Then we got fried ice cream and left stuffed.

The highway was almost deserted after dark, winding along the coast and smelling like the ocean. I opened the window and let the cool air in and cranked Fleetwood Mac until Gabe fell asleep. We drove a couple more hours and stopped in Perry around 9. No all-night driving for me. Plus, the driving made me really nervous because every couple miles I'd see a herd of deer on the side of the road. None of them ran, they just looked at the car. They didn't even look nervous. Still, it made me paranoid driving, so I was glad to see a town big enough to have hotels. And here we are.

Today, we're going to find a beach to camp on, and we're going to meet up with Ryan. I'm excited!