Off the Beaten Path

Every year young people from all over travel to Destin and South Walton for Spring Break. They come in droves and there are a LOT of them.

They seem to have two main goals they try to accomplish while they're here – going to the beach and drinking as much as possible. I'm sure sex is on their list too but we won't go there.

Maybe I'm just old but the idea of spending a day at the beach with a LARGE group of drunken college kids is not my idea of fun.

So instead of hitting the beach on Sunday, the Island King and I crossed the Bay and spent the day wandering the back roads of Walton County.

We passed this mailbox and I had to go back to see of it was real concrete.


It's not.

I love traveling down roads like this one.


This sign is on one side


And this one is on the other.


Always makes me wonder what we'll find at the end of the road.

This time it was just a road through the woods.

But it did lead to another road where we met this guy.


I think it would be so cool to have one living in my yard but then he honked and I realized that having a honking peacock wandering around might not be so cool after all.

At one point as we were driving along the Island King yelled “Stop!”

I thought he'd seen something cool but he just wanted to check out the camper toilet in the trash pile.



I'm so glad I won that fight or that trashed toilet would be in the trunk of the car, waiting to go to Tower Camp to live.

A few minutes later he found something else he wants for Tower Camp and this time I agree.




These two donkeys were so sweet. Well, I guess they were sweet, they came up to the fence and hung out with us but we didn't pet them. I'm no expert but I think some of them bite and my philosophy has always been that if it might bite – don't touch it.

Both of us would love to swing the metal detector around this old barn and see what we could find.

 


No day wandering with me would be complete without a stop in at least one cemetery.


This cemetery had some really interesting old graves and then there was this one.


Our pets?

The bottom of the monument says “Infants of...”


So did they call their babies pets? I'm pretty sure these are not animals buried here.

I've seen some weird inscriptions on headstones before but I think this one wins the prize in the weird department.

It's amazing how crossing the Bay can take us to a completely different world. Gentle rolling hills, thick pine forests, incredible oak hammocks – all of it absolutely beautiful.


Northwest Florida truly is paradise - no matter which side of the Bay you're on.

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