Make It Happen, Boat Cap'n--at Navarre Beach!

Make It Happen, Boat Cap'n!

Somebody celebrated a birthday this week. Since she missed someone else's birthday celebration back in May, complete with a "party barge and brownies and cupcakes" per his request, she had a bright idea. Make it happen again. Boat Cap'n. Only this time there would be sandwiches, chips, and cookies. And this time the boat didn't set sail from Destin Harbor. Navarre Beach is more her style. More laid-back. Fewer people. Less expensive.

View of the bridge across Santa Rosa Sound to Navarre Beach from the Best Western on Highway 98.

She is, after all, of the age where night life is now defined by a comfortable bed, quiet, and lights out by 10 p.m. The other day she asked a couple of much younger friends to guess the year of her birth. I'll give you a hint, she said. It was the year John F. Kennedy was elected President of the United States. They were stumped. She didn't think it would help to add that the year ushered in a decade of literary jewels like To Kill A Mockingbird, Catch-22, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. According to this excellent website that chronicles America's cultural history, people, especially the younger crowd, were being drawn like flies to the idea of change in that decade. No, not that stuff that's left in your pocket after you get to pay your fair share these days.

And it's not "the change" often dreaded or maybe anticipated by women of a certain age. Speaking of drawing flies, there were some sort of blood-sucking critters taking over the beach for most of the weekend. The only way to avoid them was to keep on the move or jump in the water. The birthday girl and her party did a fair amount of both...

...whenever they could convince Boat Cap'n to give up on the fishing. If the flies were biting, the fish sure weren't.

One thing that hasn't changed much since the birthday girl first moved to Northwest Florida eight years ago is the amount of development at Navarre Beach. There's no pass like at Destin or Pensacola to enter the Gulf of Mexico so there's no fleet of fishing vessels or hordes of tourists clamoring to charter them. No fancy yachts here.

Tourists who do visit Navarre (and like it) don't mind stepping out of their room to see snapped off trees in a vacant lot next to the hotel--remnants of some hurricane or tropical storm that blew by. Sunrise has a way of softening the effect.

The early bird gets a good spot on the beach too. Even later in the day there aren't any bad spots on the beach. A state park occupies a large chunk of prime beachfront property. According to a gentleman who was out early picking up what little trash had accumulated from the night before, there will soon be artificial reefs in place here for fish to hide in and for snorkelers to explore. He's been a resident of Navarre since the mid 90s and looks forward to this kind of change. A gentle tweaking of the natural beauty rather than a facelift, tummy tuck, or breast enhancement.

Locals and tourists alike enjoy visiting the Gulf's longest fishing pier at Navarre Beach. The pier is celebrating its first anniversary. It had to be rebuilt anyway after being hammered repeatedly by storms a few years back so why not make it the longest? Before the birthday girl headed back to Tallahassee (after doing a drive-by snooting of the old homestead to see if the tenants have changed anything else by landscape looting), she and the original boat cap'n stopped by the pier to purchase some coffee. It was too early for beer...


Navarre Beachside Church



...and it was Sunday morning. If it hadn't been for the biting flies and the drive-by snooting still on the day's agenda, this church without walls would have been a fine place to spend an hour or two. The wind carried the sound of worship music and prayer all the way out to the end of the Gulf's longest fishing pier.

A to Z Blogging Challenge: X is for Railroad Crossing Sign

 X is for Railroad Crossing Sign

Just about anywhere in the world, you will find railway crossings. They are a sure sign of progress, or at least they used to be, in the United States. Now we have automobiles to ride in and roads on which to travel. Once upon a time, there were just railways to bring goods and carry people across vast distances. They opened up new territories to the settlers who built this country's small towns and big cities.

Those parallel lines--a sign of the changing times--laid across hills and valleys, tunneled through mountains, and suspended high above rivers and bays inspired writers like Stephen Crane to describe a special milieu. It was instantly recognizable to anyone who traveled by train and paid attention to what was happening around him. Certainly, majestic vistas caught the eye, but a sense of being hurtled into the unknown, which could be dangerous, was for many people also part of the experience. The old, familiar way of life appeared to be vanishing right before their eyes:

The great Pullman was whirling onward with such dignity of motion that a glance from the window seemed simply to prove that the plains of Texas were pouring eastward. Vast flats of green grass, dull-hued spaces of mesquite and cactus, little groups of frame houses, woods of light and tender trees, all were sweeping into the east, sweeping over the horizon, a precipice... (Stephen Crane, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," first published in McClure's Magazine in 1898.)

Anymore, we don't usually associate trains with something bad happening like falling off a cliff since most of us rely on other modes of transportation. And therein lies a real danger. Is it a lack of sensibility or too much complacency that's the crux of a potential problem? Railroad crossings--where the modes intersect--and motorists who fail to pay attention to signs are not a good combination. It can't be that the warning signs aren't recognizable. They really haven't changed much over the years. A simple crossbuck or crux decussata (the Roman numeral ten) with the words "Railroad Crossing" clearly lets you know that there could be a train about to cross your path. You would be smart to stop, look, and listen for it, especially if there are no warning lights or mechanical arms descending to block your path.

It's estimated that a 150-car freight train traveling 50 miles per hour takes 1.5 miles to completely stop. So why do people ignore the warnings and take chances? I found an interesting site developed by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) that chronicles with video some near-misses. Some of them will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. They'll make you wonder if those drivers got their licenses from Cracker Jack boxes.

Please visit A to Z Blogging Challenge for more "X's" posted by Challenge hosts and other writers.

A to Z Blogging Challenge: P is for Putting Things in Perspective...but Which One?

 P is for Putting Things in Perspective...but Which One?

It's been a while since I last posted...or commented anywhere. Please forgive me!

Moving is a real pain. But that's just my perspective. It comes from experience. In the nearly 51 years of my lifetime, I've moved on average about every two years. You would think I'd be used to it by now. Nope.

I'm too much a creature of habit. I like for things to stay the same. It's comforting to have things in order. I can't stand chaos. All this talk of change--expect it, embrace it--makes me think that the people who insist on it for everyone else won't be playing by the same rules. Things will stay the same for them while the rest of us get moved around like pieces in a game of chess. 

I should let my thoughts lay down like the wind does almost every evening. Put the boxes aside for a while. Watch the game from the sidelines. Plan my next move. The first part is over. Now on to the next one. All work and no play...    

Please see A to Z Blogging Challenge for links to more "P's" posted by Challenge hosts and other writers.