Bobbie Jean's, Mail, Fort Walton Beach

We decided to drive into Crestview. This grocery store named after Doug's mom and dad was about a mile from our campground, although Doug's dad is "Bobby" not "Bobbie".

In Crestview, we went to personally pick up our mail from our mail forwarding service, Myrvmail.com.

The next day we headed down to the Destin, Fort Walton Beach area. While there we came across Camping on the Gulf RV Park. Here you can camp right on the beach.

For $75 to $120 per night, you get to be up to your jacks in sand. While it looks neat, we would prefer the sites a few feet farther from the beach which come with sewer hookups and lower prices.

This area, known as The Emerald Coast, boasts beautiful green water and bright white sand beaches. As you can see, the beach wasn't too packed at this time.

Marlon took a break and drank a cola.

We next went to see incredible Navarre Beach.

This beautiful beach was the location of Navarre Beach State Park for only about 4 months in 2004, when it was damaged within months by both Hurricane Ivan and Hurricane Dennis. The State then decided to give the park back to Santa Rosa County.

Navarre Beach features a lot of unique-looking houses priced about $600,000 and up, as well as condo and house vacation rentals.

Here a plane is landing at nearby Eglin Air Force Base.

For more pictures around Crestview and the Fort Walton Beach Area, go to http://public.fotki.com/Marlonfleenor/1/2007/october/going-to-our-mail-f/ and http://public.fotki.com/Marlonfleenor/1/2007/october/going-to-fort-walto/ .


To be continued...

Sunset King Lake Resort, DeFuniak Springs, Florida

Today we left Jellystone Park in Robert, Louisiana and headed for Sunset King Lake Resort in DeFuniak Springs, Florida.

We REALLY liked our site at this park. One thing that would have made it better would have been a concrete pad for the RV. Other than that it was great.

Nice, clean swimming pool.

Brand new fishing dock on King Lake.

This is where the resort shows movies on Friday Night. We saw Wild Hogs with Tim Allen and John Travolta.

After viewing the resort, we decided to lengthen our originally planned stay of 5 nights to 8 nights.

To see more pictures of Sunset King Lake Resort, go to http://public.fotki.com/Marlonfleenor/1/2007/september/sunset-king-lake-re/ .

To be continued...

Gulfport & Biloxi

Today we went to see the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. We stopped at a Mississippi Visitor Center near Bay St. Louis where NASA also has a visitor center called the Stennis Space Center. They offer tours but we were unaware of this attraction and will have to wait until next time.

But we did take a look at this Lunar Lander...

and we also took a look at the black cat that just showed up the week before at the Mississippi Visitor Center. It was curled up so still on the hay that it looked like a statue and most of the people who walked by didn't even notice it.

In Bay St. Louis, we began to see houses still showing signs of Katrina.

Here's the bridge connecting Bay St. Louis to Pass Christian. The southern half of the new bridge replacing the span destroyed by Katrina is now open to two-way traffic.

Near Gulfport, we found this swimming pool missing its house. Many of the streets nearest the Gulf were similar.

Here's a video Marlon took of the Gulfport area.

Waffle House (the yellow sign) was one of the first businesses to rebuild on the Gulf Coast. There is probably a new Waffle House every 2 miles for 25 miles...and ALMOST nothing else.

In Gulfport we located the site of Marine Life Oceanarium, one of the many casualties of Hurricane Katrina.

The Oceanarium was the home to dolphins, sea lions and exotic birds. Many of the animals were evacuated before the storm. However 8 dolphins and 19 sea lions were left to ride out the storm in what staff members believed were safe areas.

Unfortunately, Katrina proved more powerful than ever expected as she devastated the park and set the remaining animals free into the Gulf. Most were recovered but several did lose their lives.

These pictures are a far cry from when Marlon visited Marine Life Oceanarium in 1999 below.

Further on in Biloxi, we ran across the Sharkheads Souvenir Store. It appears work is being done on the building, but it is far from completion.

Here is a YouTube video of what Sharkheads used to look like...
The Isle of Debris (I mean Capri) has reopened in Biloxi.

While the smaller Casino Magic next to it probably will never reopen. Harrah's has, however, purchased the land it sits on.

For more pictures of the Marine Life Oceanarium and the Gulfport-Biloxi area, go to http://public.fotki.com/Marlonfleenor/1/2007/september/gulf-coast-gulfport/ .

To be continued...