Pirate Booty, Waterfront Jesus and a Beauty Queen - Day 5

Day 5*

Daybreak, diffused by the densely fogged windows, softly illuminated the interior of my Pilot, and I listened for the tortured screams of my fellow campers who were caught out in tents and eaten last night.

As you may recall, last night I was cornered by rabid raccoons and had to retreat to the safety of my SUV. OK, not cornered… they were just walking around. And, OK, not rabid - it was night and they seemed relatively docile. But I definitely retreated. And this morning, I steeled myself for the carnage that awaited me on the other side of the car door.

Silence.

I leaned left on the softening air mattress, throwing over my right leg and arm, fighting to get enough of body weight over my vertical center of balance to power a roll toward the door. The tipping point reached, I rapidly rotated down the suddenly sloped plastic windbag until my BPAP mask, and my face behind it, crashed into the door.

Tearing off the mask, I clambered and craned to peer out the window.

Hmph. I guess the raccoons did not destroy the entire campground overnight.

But, while outside the car there were no signs of disarray, inside the car was another story. After just five days on the road, my living space looked like the cover of Van Life for Tasmanian Devils magazine. What started as a tightly organized and efficient space was now… not that. It was like a master class in entropy, except in an itty-bitty space that you can’t not be in.

I’ve been tweaking the system throughout the trip, but I think there will be a lot less stuff packed in here on the next one.

Following a less-than-graceful exit from the Pilot, I stood on the dew-soaked dirt and noticed….

It was warm! Warm enough to not wear a coat, even! This was a good start to a day when I’d leave St. George Island and drive west along the coast of the Florida Panhandle.

Fig. A: So warm I have to squint

I crossed the Not-George S. Patton Memorial Bridge for one last time and headed west, to the Sabbath Ghost Town of Apalachicola for some breakfast, making a bee line for the Biscuit Factory, the one place I knew I could count on in this God-fearing town.

The Biscuit Factory was closed for the day. Why does this place make it so hard to give them money?

I did find a nice little restaurant on the main road heading out of town, called Dolores’ Sweet Shoppe. I didn’t see a lot of sweets, but a very nice little old lady (Delores, I guess?) made me a delicious bacon, egg and cheese bagel.


Fig. B: Delores’ shoppe

It was a unique little restaurant – it looked like Delores had converted her house into a place of business. The main room was what remained of the dining room, I imagined, and the kitchen looked like the original kitchen. A half-wall separated the two, and coffee and soda machines casually lined one section of a wall.

As I waited for my sandwich, I took in the pictures on the walls, almost all of which looked at least 60 years old. There were images of Apalachicola back before they invented color –black-and-white shots of buildings that would have been right at home in a Ken Burns documentary. There were lots of other grainy group pictures of sports teams and graduating classes and social clubs, everyone looking happy. When looking at old images of people, I inevitably wonder about the lives of each of those people: Did they marry? Have kids? Reach dreams? What were they expecting, and how has it turned out? Are they dead? A lot of them must be dead, right?

And there were lots of pictures of parades with beauty queens on classic convertibles. Context clues led me to the realization that one of the beauty queens was Delores herself. Back in – the 60s, maybe? – Delores was a stunning woman, with a mischievous smile and a glint in her eye. I glanced over at the old woman in the kitchen, happily humming to the radio as she flipped my egg on the griddle.


Fig. C: Delores today. And, as God is my witness, I will find a picture of Delores from when she was younger. I messed up and didn’t take a picture of her beauty queen photo on the wall to my eternal regret.

Then I turned back to the vivacious woman photographed living a different life, in a different time. Men in ties crowded around her, obviously jockeying for her attentions. I’m sure more than a few women jockeyed as well. Meanwhile Delores was smiling at the camera, aware of the adoration but not attending to it, making her even more alluring to the hopefuls.

I imagined the cocktail parties associated with these events: highballs on ice in glass tumblers, cigarette smoke and music from the record player, traditional courtship rituals enticingly co-mingled with the possibilities presented by the changing mores of the 60s.

Did she ever pick someone? Did she pursue someone beyond even her reach, and come away disappointed? Was she dreaming of a career, a family, a life, while smiling at that camera? Or was she simply alive in that moment?

Two different humans. Two different realities. Two different existences. That parade, that life, that moment memorialized in the photo - it no longer existed, it was no longer real. For that matter, the moment five seconds ago when I first saw the photo also no longer existed. The only moment that existed was right now – me standing in a woman’s house converted to a restaurant, and an old woman sliding my bacon, egg and cheese bagel onto a plate and carrying it to the counter.

After breakfast, I headed west along Florida’s Forgotten Coast.

Fig. D: Remember this.

On the way out of Apalachicola, I found what undoubtedly was treasure from a Spanish galleon or a marauder from the Golden Age of Piracy. Here live video of the announcement of my historic find:


Fig. E: #blessed

Speaking of #blessed, Florida’s Forgotten Coast is blessed with so much beach front property that even the churches have great views. Seems to me, Heaven is a harder sell when this is your current location.


Fig. F: First United Methodist Church, Port Saint Joe, Florida
I don’t know who St. Joe is but he must have some juice.

As I drive through little towns on a trip like this, I feel a compulsion to not just see, but to remember every little thing about every little place. I think I need to remember what the main street of each town I pass through looks like. What the houses look like from one town to the next. How old the county courthouse is and what the plaque in front says. How many old men sat in front of the grocery markets or gas stations, and what their expressions conveyed as I drove past.

And it’s frustrating to realize 10 minutes outside the town that its details are already blurring with all the other towns I’d passed through.

But then I think, what I really need to do is just be in every little town or place that I’m in. I’ll never remember everything about every place. Even if I take pictures I’m not going to go back and catalogue and review each little town. But in that moment, if I can be in those places, then I have been in those places.

To that end, after beholding Beach Baby Jesus Holy Church (not the actual name, but if I were in charge of church naming it would be), I decided to turn right, into the town of Port Saint Joe, and see what the rest of the place looked like.

And, lucky you: here’s my 36-second video tour of the charming little town of Port Saint Joe.


Fig. G: Quaint and beautiful Port Saint Joe, with a surprise find at the end!

As it turns out, my narration is sort of correct, but it wasn’t a long time ago that this charming little town was run down, it was just a few years back. Hurricane Michael came through in 2018 and absolutely wrecked the town, including Beach Baby Jesus Holy Church. The local community did a hell of a job bringing the town and the church back to life, and it is really a great place (judging from my drive through).

By the way, the last five seconds of that video is a good summation of what was in the back of mind during every minute of this trip.

Next installment: Panama City Beach, a night in a dump/luxury resort, and a dilemma about a goat bar.


* Moment of Truthiness: I’m already back from my walkabout. In fact, it occurred LAST year about this time. I was going to post about it after the trip, but I sort of ran out of steam. So now I’m going to pretend I’m posting about my walkabout real-time, just like a reality show pretends to be reality.

Take the whole trip! I’ll even cover the gas!

TravelChuckFlorida's Forgotten Coast, St. Joe's Beach, #blessed, Delores' Sweet ShoppeComment