What Do Matt Gaetz and Jim Carrey Have in Common? - Day 6

Day 6*
I got up early, bid goodbye to the luxury resort dump, and headed for the stretch of road that I’d been thinking about the entire trip: Florida State Road 30A.

This road is the crown jewel of the Redneck Riviera. Just short of Rosemary Beach, Rt. 98 breaks sharply north and Hwy 30A picks up the beachfront baton, running up the coast along increasingly white sand beaches lapped by increasingly colorful blue, green and emerald water. The map lists a string of enticing town names connected by 30A: Santa Rosa Beach, Blue Mountain Beach, Grayton Beach, Watercolor, Seaside, Seagrove Beach, Seacrest Beach, Alys Beach and Rosemary Beach.

Some of these are quaint towns that have existed for decades. Grayton Beach, for example, was first settled in 1890, and while only one original structure remains, the place has a hamlet feel to it. Alys Beach, on the other hand, is a privately developed community that was created in 2004 – so, like, a minute ago – and looks like a cross between Palm Beach and Las Vegas if it were designed by Augustus Caesar during a cocaine bender.

Fig. A: Grayton Beach on the left; Alys Beach on the right.


The rest of the towns of 30A are somewhere on the spectrum between Grayton Beach and Alys Beach. While I like the “regular” communities better, I am fascinated by those that were privately built from scratch. These are “towns” in the same way Busch Gardens is “Europe.” Each is a Sim City come to life, with (very expensive) shops, restaurants, sections for apartments/condominiums and other sections for single-family houses. They all have town squares, often anchored by an operating Post Office and a Towne Hall built in the same architectural style.


Fig. B: The quaint European towne of Rosemary Beach, Fla.

If you’re from Richmond, you’ll understand this: Rosemary Beach is like West Broad Village on steroids and then some more steroids.

Then, add another bottle of steroids, and you get Seaside. Seaside is a beautiful little fake town, developed in the early 80s, that was designed to include only traditional wood-framed cottages and is built around a giant town square (really a semi-circle) facing the Gulf.


Fig. C: Seaside, Fla., former home of… He Who Shall Not Be Named.

This fake town looks so much like a set from a Hollywood film or TV show that in 1998 Hollywood created a story to film here, which turned out to be a real movie about a character with a fake life featured in a reality television show, which they filmed in this fake town.

The Truman Show starred real actor Jim Carrey, but not his real wife Jenny McCarthy who trumpets fake conspiracies about really effective vaccines. And the cherry on the fake cake: the house that Carrey’s character lived in was actually owned, in real life, by the family of fake Congressman and real asshole Matt Gaetz.

While all this local color might lead you to believe I was touring the coast all day, I wasn’t. As you may recall from my first post in this series, which was - a thousand posts ago? - I now work part time, putting in full days on Tuesday and Wednesday, then working Thursday mornings.

I’ll tell the truth: I don’t like working when I travel. OK, that’s more obvious than I thought it would be. But in my head I thought it was an awesome idea to work from anywhere - have laptop, will travel. But here's the thing about working when you are traveling. You are still WORKING.

This being Tuesday, I spent 8 hours working in a coffee shop tucked away in a Kroger, and picked up all of the observations above as I traveled from point to point during the day, speaking notes into my phone as I drove.

It is torture to drive by stuff you want to stop to look at because you need to find a coffee shop or a Kroger to work from. And, yes, at the end of the day, you close your laptop and you are - PRESTO - in Seaside, Florida. But that leaves 2-4 hours to experience the place before you have to climb into the back of your dank giant blue chrysalis.

Those days of working 8 hours then “traveling” were much less satisfying than I hoped they would be. But that’s how you learn, right? The entire point of this trip was to learn about traveling and now I’d learned that I’d much rather not work than work.

In the words of the Avett Brothers, “Call the Smithsonian, I’ve made a discovery!”

But the day wasn’t an entire loss. Tonight I would be visiting the FAMOUS Red Bar in Santa Rosa Beach! And then back to camping at Grayton Beach State Park! So stay tuned!


* 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!

TravelChuckMatt Gaetz, Jim Carrey, Seaside, Rosemary Beach, Grayton Beach, Kroger, #nomadworkingComment