The Lighthouse People

We woke up in Theodore, Alabama to sunny skies and much cooler temperatures, but no rain!  We left Payne's RV Park at 9 AM and headed to our destination for tonight, Carrabelle, Florida.  Passing through Mobile and Pensacola we were able to see first-hand, the damage that the storms that rampaged through the area wrought.  There was water where there should never be water, and objects floating in water that should be in homes or back yards!  What a mess!  However, the interstate was open and clear of debris so it was clear sailing as far as the Turtle moving on!

We made a planned stop in Fort Walton Beach, Florida to meet and visit with Bob and Sandra Shanklin, "the lighthouse people".  What a wonderful visit we had!  It was so much fun to share lighthouse stories and adventures with them! From their book titled Lighthouses of Florida ,comes this excerpt: "In 1987,we embarked on a long journey to photograph every lighthouse in the United States. On February 3, 1997, we realized our dream!  After a summer trip to Alaska in 1998 and a winter trip to Hawaii in 1999, we had photographed every standing lighthouse in the United States!  In January 2001, we added to that list by photographing the lighthouses of Puerto Rico." To read more about Bob and Sandra, go to www.TheLighthousePeople.com . Sandra is an artist and Bob is a professional photographer, so it only seemed fitting that these talents would come together to share in such an exciting endeavor!  Bob is also a writer of essays (not lighthouses) from his life experiences riding a bus with his mother as a young child - selling peanuts to earn the nickel he needed to ride the bus!  He is currently writing his third book!  Needless to say, Jim and I are far behind in our lighthouse quest, although we have made a commendable dent in our years of lighthouse hunting!

As we shared our time with Bob and Sandra, it rained, but by the time we said our goodbyes, the rain had stopped and we encountered no more rain on our travels today!  It was so nice not to have to deal with the wet stuff again!

We made another stop in Bay St. Joe to view the St. Joseph Point lighthouse.  It is privately owned, but the owner has refurbished the lighthouse and added a new lantern room.  It is the owners personal residence, and they have done a great job of restoring the home to its' original condition.

The Florida panhandle used to be our old stomping grounds, and it had been a while since we had actually driven along the coast line, (we usually drive 1-10 and by-pass the beach traffic).  The quiet little coastal towns have grown to the point of becoming suburbs to the nearest towns all the way from Pensacola to where we are at Carrabelle.  It is unbelievable the tourism growth in the area!  The cheapest lot we saw for sale (and we are talking a very small lot here) was $199,000! 

Tomorrow we will be visiting the Crooked River Lighthouse, Cape San Blas Lighthouse and St. George Lighthouse.  We have actually seen these lighthouses before, but we videotaped them then (it was before digital cameras) and did not have pictures for our files.  So we are doing them one more time..........This gives you an idea as to how long we have been doing this...........:)

We can tell we are back in Florida and close to the water, the mosquitos and gnats found us quickly once we arrived at the RV park!  Ugh!

It was a great day.  We made new friends, we had no rain and we got to see another lighthouse!  As I have said repeatedly, it is not necessarily about the journey, but the people you meet along the way!  We are blessed beyond measure!



 

 

Point St. Joseph Lighthouse, Bay St. Joe, Florida

(I can definitely see us living here!)

 



 

One of those things that keep Alabama weird!

 

 

 

 

Cute little lighthouse in shopping center in Fort Walton Beach, Florida

 

 

 

Dale Earnhardt (Senior) Exhibition Car transport on the road.......

 

Another fiberglass RV called a Scamp - half the size of our Turtle!

 

Some of the water along 1-10- a result of the storms that passed through the area earlier in the week!

"Water, Water Everywhere, But Not A Drop To Drink!" (From the Ancient Mariner - Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

In all our years of living on the Gulf Coast or in an area in close proximity to a body of water, we have never encounter the wrath of Mother Nature that we have in the last two days!  We are approximately 12-15 miles from Mobile, Alabama, and therefore, we were in the direct path of the massive storms that passed through the area Monday-this A.M..  In a period of one hour, 6" of rain fell in the Mobile-Pensacola area - a record held since 1820!  There were tornados and hail as well as flash flooding throughout the area, and it appeared there would be no end.....I cannot imagine what Noah felt when there were these same conditions when he was on the sea for forty days and forty nights! 

We were fortunate to be able to weather the storm, and today the weather was sunny and pleasant!  What a difference a day makes........

We attempted to once again go to Bellingrath Gardens, but due to the flooding were unable to get to the gardens.  The Fowl River had overflowed its' banks and covered the highway and there was no way to get around it to get to the gardens.  So we spent the day simply enjoying the warmth of the sun and watching the birds and water fowl in the park.  Good quality time......

Tomorrow we will head to Carrabelle, Florida, which means we will pass through Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach, which also received the wrath of the same storms we experienced.  I-10 was closed from Exit 1-Exit 10 today, due to water over the road, so hopefully the water will recede by the time we go through the area.  We are hoping to visit with some people in Fort Walton Beach that are known as the Lighthouse People and share some lighthouse stories!  Fort Walton Beach brings back fond memories as that is where I met Jim and also where both of my boys (Jason and Jeremy) were born.  It is also where I was stationed while serving in the Air Force!

That's about it for now, a short blog today, but we are just happy to say we were able to get through the storms and be able to tell you that we did! God is good!

 

Area flooding was widespread!

 

No this is not a pond/lake, it was a pasture on Monday morning!

 

Fowl River over the roadway!

 

 

St. Phillip Church - no water here.....

 

The ducks and geese enjoyed the sunshine today!

 

 

"Speedy" was glad to get out today as well!

"Singing in the rain, I'm singing in the rain".......

"And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down.  Without the rain, there would be no rainbow"... G. Chesterton

We haven't seen the rainbow, but we have certainly seen (and heard) the rain!  It began early this morning at 2:30 AM and ended somewhere around 4:30 A.M.  There was no wind, for which we are  grateful.  When we got up, the rain had passed for the time being so after breakfast we proceeded to Bellingrath Gardens, which was our planned activity for the day.  We planned on taking Lacy to the Pet Motel they have there, but the lock we had did not work in their run gate.  So we decided to go to Dauphin Island to view Fort Gaines and to drive the beach road and view the Sand Island lighthouse which is located in Mobile Bay and can be seen from the shore.  We would then pick up a different lock for the kennel and return to Bellingrath Gardens this afternoon.  As it turned out, this was a wise decision as shortly after leaving the Fort, the torrential rains began again.  And it rained all afternoon.  We made it back to the RV park safely, but not without some testing of Jim's driving skills in high water and pounding rain!

So the afternoon was spent reading, going through pictures, correspondences and keeping Lacy calm as she is petrified of thunder.  As I write this, the rain has stopped although we can still hear rumblings of thunder in the distance. 

The same storms that have been in the area for the last two days are moving towards the Florida panhandle which is our next stop, so we may just stay here for one more day before moving on so we don't have to deal with the extreme weather again.  This will allow us the opportunity to visit Bellingrath Gardens tomorrow. 

Today's visit to Fort Gaines was interesting. In 1853, Congress named the fortification for General Edmund Pendleton Gaines who had died in 1849.  While still a young officer, Gaines received national recognition when he led the detachment which captured former Vice-President Aaron Burr who had been accused of participating in a conspiracy to commit treason.  Gaines' men pursued Burr to the vicinity of Fort Stoddert in what is now Washington County, Alabama, just north of Mobile. 

Most of the work on the fort was completed by 1861.  The outbreak of the Civil War then left the remainder of work to the Confederate States of America. which added the last touches by 1862.  The role of Fort Gaines in the Battle of Mobile Bay, one of the war's most notable naval conflicts, was significant.

The United States sold Fort Gaines to the City of Mobile in 1926.  The city in turn gave the property to the Alabama Department of Conservation, which deeded it to the Dauphin Island Park and Beach Board.  Thus the Fort that took 40 years to construct and was provisioned to withstand any attack from land or sea. at great strategic advantage, became an overnight victim of obsolescence. The technology of armament and the facile display of opposing forces doomed the Renaissance Fort Design.

For more information on  Fort Gaines, go to: www.dauphinisland.org/fortgaines

For more information on Dauphin Island, go to www.daupinisland.org and choose your desired prompt.

Todays photos:

 

Little White Church - Near the RV Park

 

 

Scenes from Fort Gaines

 

Scenes from Dauphin Island

 

 

 A mean surf due to the mean weather!