I’ve wanted to visit New Orleans for some years, so straight after landing back from Mexico we got on the road and started a road trip from Orlando. The intention was to drive for no more than 3 hours maximum each day, and avoid the major highway as much as possible, thereby seeing some of the interesting places along the way. We drove through a very small town called Carrabelle and decided to stop at this extremely sleepy little place. It was like going back in time and I haven’t heard the words ‘Mercantile’ and ‘Apparel’ for many years.
It was the first time I saw houses on stilts and there were many more along the way. They’re built this way due to the annual threat of hurricanes and storm surges. If the water rises it flows underneath the house and doesn’t flood it. Hopefully !
Carrabelle is a fishing town, and the guy below pretty much sums up the clientele at Harry’s Bar. As does the sign on the door. It’s good to see that respect for women is alive and well there. Sigh………….. 🙁
Next was Apalachicola, which now runs off my tongue but took a few attempts at breaking the word down slowly before I could say it !
It was another sleepy town but there were a few nice homes there.
But an awful lot of dilapidated ones too. My guess was that there’s absolutely nothing there for young people so they move away, and when an old person dies, their home is just left to rot. They do make great photographic subjects though!
Further on our journey we pulled off the road to see if there was anything worth photographing and found this spot.
Perfectly still water made for some great reflections.
I do love a covered porch, especially if it has some chairs on it!
Another stop along the road at a beach – I’ve forgotten where exactly though – maybe I didn’t even know where we were at the time!
Still in Florida and driving through a place called Mexico Beach, I noticed thousands of topless trees and a lot of building work going on. The town was extensively damaged by Hurricane Michael in 2018 which brought sustained winds of 160 miles per hour! Nearly all homes were completely destroyed and 3.5 years later it’s still being rebuilt.
Further along the coast we went for a walk in the hope of finding something interesting to photograph but I couldn’t get inspired so this small area of trees was the only scene that caught my eye.
After leaving Florida we drove through the bottom of Alabama, and then through Mississippi (which I can finally spell without having to look up just how many ‘i’, ‘s’, and ‘p’ letters there are in the name!)
We stopped at an old plantation house which looked like a scene out of ‘Gone With The Wind’. It’s now a museum but used to be the home of Jefferson Davis who was the president of the Confederate States in the 1800s. Much to my disgust he owned over 70 slaves at one time. As a senator, he fiercely defended the interests of the South in the growing sectional battle over slavery that put America on the path to civil war. I did find the place quite fascinating as a slice of history, but racism of any kind is completely abhorrent to me.
Further along the road we were standing as far as we could walk along a jetty when I was challenged to take a photograph without moving more than a couple of feet. This was as creative as I could get – some extreme editing was needed to make it even vaguely interesting!!
Early the next morning I couldn’t resist photographing the deep blue sky and interesting clouds above the lighthouse before hitting the road again.
Next stop – Louisiana……
Love the pics. Find the light grey of the print too hard to read tho. Possible to make it charcoal grey instead of light grey. Would love to be able to read your story too without eye strain.
Thanks for the feedback Linda.