Mark and Lyn

We’ve headed to the Gulf coast 5 winters now … in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2024, and now 2025. Every time we’ve taken a shadow photo on our sunset walks

Lyn’s dream finally comes true!

[Carrabelle Day # 4 2025-03-01 (Sat)]. Today, after years in the making, Lyn finally got to drive along the Florida coast/beaches in the Jeep with the roof panels off. We drove around the city of Carrabelle then east about 10 miles along the coastal highway to Lanark. We spent some time driving around Lanark, which was mainly small, older homes, many made from cinderblock. Then we headed west along the coast to about 15 miles west of Carrabelle, just enjoying the view.

Lanark FL. This is a home in the middle of town. Doesn’t look like these folks could afford eggs but they could buy Trump paraphernalia. Unfathomable. Makes me sad to see, but it’s everywhere here (just like rural WI). These poor folks are the victims of decades of Republican propaganda.

This morning we did a walk up the coast to a lighthouse park where a Saturday “country market” was taking place. Very quaint, nick-nacks, some photography, and baked goods. We got some lemon scones from a nice couple from Crawfordville. The round trip walk, including some back roads, was about 2.5 miles.

Crooked River Lighthouse – Location of Saturday County Market

Country Market at Crooked River Lighthouse and Museum

In other exciting developments today we successfully hooked up to the sewer port at our site and dumped our black and gray water holding tanks. Whew, glad that milestone is behind us!

Today started with a walk to the beach at sunrise

Our view for the next month.

[Carrabelle Day #3 2025-02-28 (Fri)]. Lyn reserved a site here for the entire month of March (there’s a fairly large discount when renting a site monthly), but we arrived 2 days ago and had to setup in a different site until that site was available. So we relocated today. It’s a nice location with a view across the road to the beach.

The highlights of the rest of the day were afternoon and evening walks on the beach. I’ll just end today’s blog with a few photos.

Lyn and Tucker in their natural environment.

Yes! Afternoon walk.

[Carrabelle Day #2 2025-02-27 (Thu)]. Just a little settling in and relaxing today. It was nice to walk Tucker around the resort and chat with other campers. Seems there are a lot of people who regularly make this place a multi-month stay in the winter, and we ran into 2 couples that recognized us from our 1 week visit here last year (oh, there’s that couple from Wisconsin with their beagle …).

Of course we took a few walks to the beach. This afternoon was very windy so we wore sweatshirts & light coats to the beach, but it was nice enough to sit and read outside at the picnic table in the shade of a couple palm trees. Ah, this is the life! Mostly we just settled into being on site in our new home-on-wheels, and only left to get a few things at the hardware store and grocery store in town.

Not roadkill, just Tucker relaxing while we chat with other campers.

A nice walk on the beach after sunset.

Our home away from home for the next month.

Ready to depart 2025-02-24 – Bye bye Wisconsin Winter!!!

[Fitchburg 2025-02-24 (Mon) to Carrabelle Day#1 2025-02-26 (Wed)]. Back in August of 2024 Lyn booked a site for a month stay in March at the Carrabelle Beach RV Resort, located in the middle of the Florida Panhandle on the Gulf of Mexico (yes, Mexico!). Lyn’s dream has been for us to tow a Jeep to Florida in the winter and drive it in the sun along the coasts and beaches (preferably with the top off). We then spent months figuring out how to actually make that happen. Technically we could tow our 4700 lb Jeep with our self-converted Sprinter van, but that really isn’t a practical or safe idea. So, ultimately we bought a small Class-C motorhome, after much indecision, late in the Fall. So late in fact that we had to immediately winterize it, and we were not actually able to try it out before this trip. Hardly ideal to take it untried on such a long trip as this, including long distance towing the Jeep, and I was very nervous about that (spoiler – have had no actual problems with either the motorhome or towing so far- whew!).

We arrived in Carrabelle yesterday after 3 long days on the road. It was about 1320 miles, with overnight stops at KOA’s in Benton IL and Hattisburg MS.

Night #1 Benton IL KOA

Night #2 Hattiesburg-Okatoma (MS) KOA

Day #3 – Arrival at last Carrabelle Beach!!!

One of my biggest concerns for the trip was making fuel stops with the Motorhome-Jeep rig. Note that you can’t backup the motorhome with the Jeep hitched in back. Without careful planning and selection of stations and accessible pumps you can get “trapped” in un-maneuverable positions (and have to disconnect and fool around) or worse if not careful hit something maneuvering in tight spaces. We carefully selected 4 fuel stops along the route after reviewing them via satellite maps, and building in enough reserve fuel to reach alternates if they didn’t work out (a lot like flight planning when we had our airplane). It all went OK, with the only issue, as expected, having to wait patiently for an (usually one and only) accessible pump to open up.

Only 8-9 MPG with the 7.3L V8 Ford “Godzilla” engine. But she has lots of power and that’s what counts, so drink deeply Godzilla!

First night at Carrabelle!

To celebrate our first night in Carrabelle Lyn made us a small steak, baked potatoes, and a salad. After dinner it was past sunset but we walked down to the beach anyways. We ran into another couple, and they asked us if we were there to see the rocket launch? “What launch?” we asked. Turns out it was Intuitive Machine’s Lunar Lander being launched by a Space X Falcon 9. And scheduled for just 5 minutes from when we ran into this couple. And sure enough right on schedule, with us facing towards Kennedy Space Center (Launch Pad 39A!) over 320 miles away, we saw it as a bright orange-red object climb above the horizon, and after a couple minutes it was a bright white streak. I took a few photos with my iPhone, and really wished I’d have had time to go back to the motorhome and get our big Nikon camera with an 800mm lens.

Intuitive Machine’s Lunar Lander on top of a Space X Falcon 9 2025-02-26.