How many miles?

So that’s the big question today! How many miles have we done since we left Fanny Bay on November 27th, 2021? Any guesses? Even Richard was off by almost 1,000 miles when he guessed!

We are finally in Florida! We went through 4 states today! That’s a record for us in one day of driving! We started our day in Louisiana at 9:05am and ended our day at 2:30pm in the Florida Panhandle!

I can’t seem to find our photo of crossing into Mississippi, but I know I took one!

We definitely saw a lot of bridges today and we even went through a tunnel too!

Another bridge over a swamp.

Some areas had rivers, instead of swamps.

There was definitely a lot of swampy areas we had to cross over today on our drive from Louisiana to Florida.

Tunnel in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Finally we are in Florida.

Now we start to some more water, other than swampy land, on the Gulf of Mexico.

Our first beach in Florida!

Blue Angel In Florida!

We finally left Interstate 10 East, which we have travelled pretty much all the way from California, and headed south on Hwy 87 towards Navarre Beach.

Navarre Beach bills itself as ‘Florida’s most relaxing beach’! I wonder how they can judge that they have the most relaxing beach?

When we got to Navarre Beach, we went East on Hwy 98, which was kind of slow, with quite a few traffic lights, as we headed through some ‘beachy’ towns.

For the 3rd day in a row our RV GPS did not bring us to our final destination. Luckily I was looking out the window and just as we drove by the Destin West RV Resort, I saw this sign and said to Richard ”Pull over please…we’ve just passed our RV resort!” Its not easy to cross 6 lanes of traffic in our 40 foot Newman, but Richard managed to get us turned around and into our RV resort. I went back to double check the GPS and sure enough I had the right spot punched in, I really don’t know why the GPS has been acting up. Anyway, we made it to Destin West RV Resort!

Entrance to Destin West RV Resort. A nice beachy, Christmas themed entrance to this 54 spot RV resort.

Oh this definitely looks inviting as we drove in!

And there is Newman! Parked in the 2nd spot from the water. The people to the right of us in their Newmar Ventana are also from Ontario, Canada, but we have not met them yet. I think I was pretty lucky booking this spot last week, because we are almost the furthest away RV from the noisy roadway on Hwy 98.

We set Newman up pretty quickly today. We even pulled out our BBQ and our lawn chairs too! Since we are staying here for 3 nights, we are hoping we can BBQ our turkey tomorrow, as well as sit out and relax in our lawn chairs.

We both were pretty curious to see what this RV resort was all about, so after Newman was all set up, we took a walk around the resort. The resort is pretty small after some of the RV parks we’ve been staying at, with only 54 spots in total.

The swimming pool at our RV resort on Choctawhatchee Bay, Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

After quickly walking around the RV resort we decided we wanted to go to the beach across the street. Our RV resort has a reciprocal arrangement at the Island Hotel directly across the street from us which allows us to use their beach, and all of the facilities of the hotel. We have to wear these blue Island hotel wristbands to be on the hotel property, but its no big deal to wear them.

Quite the beach themed entrance to the Island Hotel, Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

It sure is nice to be walking around without a jacket!

We walked through the Island hotel wearing our masks looking for an outside beach bar.

The first bar we came to at the pool was closed, so we kept on walking.

The next bar we came to was also closed.

There is a bar in this ‘grotto’ pool too, but not today.

We put our masks on again to walk through the small lobby of the beachfront hotel also owned by Island hotel, and then we finally found a beach bar!

This is what we drove so many miles for! Sunshine, heat, and sand on my feet! The beach is not crowded at all either! Perfect!

So many choices…so little time.

Pina Colada for Richard and a Creamsicle for me. Delicious!

The beach bar as you can see was not crowded either, so we felt ok about sitting down with our drink outside enjoying the warm breezes off the Gulf of Mexico.

Time for a walk down the beach! The Island hotel is in the background. The white sand on Fort Walton beach was amazing!

The pier at Fort Walton Beach.

My first steps in the water shocked me a bit. The water temperature is 67F, so its not that cold, and after awhile of walking in the water, I got used to it, and it was very pleasant!

Walking back through the beach bar to get through the hotel, to cross the road, to our RV resort.

The Island hotel is nicely decorated inside for Christmas.

A beachy themed Christmas in the Island hotel.

Richard waiting for me in the lobby of the hotel. We were the only people we saw wearing masks indoors in the hotel.

Just over Richard’s right shoulder is our RV resort, directly across the street from the Island hotel.

So since we left Fanny Bay, Vancouver Island on November 27th, 2021 we have driven 3.955 miles! WOW! What a long way to drive in 28 days! Never in our lives did we ever anticipate that we would be doing a cross country RV trip! We are still in shock that we’ve just done what we did! We left Fort Erie, Ontario on October 16, 2021, and drove all the way to Vancouver Island, to the North Island - in Fanny Bay, then all down the West coast of the U.S., and now to Florida! By the time we get home in April sometime, that will pretty much be the circumference of North America. So far since we left Fort Erie, we have done 7,032 miles! Unbelievable! We were in shock when we just did this calculation! That’s a lot of miles of driving and Richard does all the driving of course!!!

And it was all worth it to be here in the Florida panhandle at Fort Walton Beach, relaxing in 73F weather for the next few days.

Merry Christmas to all! And to all a Good Night…….

We are in Destin for 3 nights before we head to Plant City, and our home. We can’t get to Plant City in one day though, so we will have one more night on the road after we leave here. Tomorrow being Christmas I will be taking a day off - so no blog tomorrow! Stay safe everyone and all the best to you and your families!!!