SANDESTIN
I was struck by the beauty of the area. Apparently others had been too. The stuccoed swank of South Florida development was burgeoning everywhere in shabby contrast to the quaint clapboard stores and teetering oyster bars. Hand-painted signs boasting the coldest beer and freshest half shells in town were dwarfed by the lavish business signs for fine dining at chic restaurants; poignant reminders that the Southern way of life that we once read about in books was now giving way to the plush hotels, the golf and tennis resorts, and the condominium coastlines that we now read about in brochures.
WEST BAY
West Bay was a sleepy little hamlet sliced in two by the intracoastal waterway. The benefits of this watery divide to the residents were marginal, and although the local economy supported two general stores, located on each side of the bridge. The only other business in town was a bait shop and marina which looked as if Tom Sawyer had been their last customer, A high-masted white sailboat floated majestically between the huge steel gantries on each side of the river, and the bridge was lowered back down to road level. We trundled over the expansion joints in the old structure, realizing that despite its lack of amenities, everything about the place was magical; we were crossing the old bridge into a new life.
NAVARRE BEACH
"That's where they shot the first "Jaws movie," I said, pointing toward the beach pavilion at the far end of a barrier island lying between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pensacola Sound. We had crossed the bridge at Navarre, west of Fort Walton and were traveling through a landscape of pure white sand dunes toward Pensacola Beach.
SEASIDE
The village of Seaside, the setting for the newspaper photographs of Princess Di , was tucked in between a range of breathtaking sand dunes on a scenic coastal highway between the Panhandle towns of Panama City and Destin. The coast of North Florida had earned the title of "the Redneck Riviera," due mainly to its summer population of visitors from the southern states of Alabama, and Georgia. Yet from its inception in the early eighties, Seaside had always attracted the elitist visitor in search of the less commercialized vacation environment. The development itself was styled on the idea of a traditional Cape Cod village with gaily painted clapboard cottages and pointed steel roofs strung like a tinsel paper-chain across permanently azure skies. Such was the beauty of this place that perpetual sunshine seemed to be an enduring feature of this settlement by-the-sea.
SCHOONERS
"Schooners" at the far end of the strip was packed with the usual intriguing mix of locals and tourists hell bent on having a good time on Saturday night. Wild strains of Zydeco music reverberated from the inside of the old beach club as we drove up. "Boom," A blast of cannon fire startled us as we stepped through the fine hale of beach sand blowing across the parking lot. "They always let it off at sunset, " I said catching her arm and leading her up the wooden walkway into the packed club where the party was in full swing.
EDEN STATE GARDENS
Eden lay ensconced in a shallow cove next to historic Point Washington, and visitors looked out onto the breathtaking views of scenic Choctawhatchee Bay. Travelers by boat would tie up beside the old dock and stroll across three hundred yards of velvet greenery to where the two-story mansion stood, in shimmering splendor above a lily pond. Picnickers would be everywhere, spreading their blankets in the shade of the huge oak trees, and church groups frequently gathered to enjoy the tranquility of the sweeping lawns.
| . |