Mexico Beach, FL (2/3 - 2/17/24)

Going back to the FL panhandle, we wanted to visit the Forgotten Coast. We stayed at the Old Salt RV Park in the town of Mexico Beach and was located near the towns of Port St. Joe, Apalachicola, and east of the larger Panama City.

We were a little leary of coming here after reading about the damage that was done in 2018 by Hurricane Michael where this place was ground zero for one of the most devastating storms in US history. Although you still see remnants of damage, like trees lying at a 45-degree angle, house pilings with bent retention bolts with no house, there has been a lot of reconstruction and the area is fully functional.

One of the interesting/annoying aspects of where we stayed was that we were literally on the timezone border between Eastern and Central. We were staying in Eastern, but across the street it was Central. We had to constantly plan what time we are now and where we are going to make sure we didn't get some place before it opened or after it closed.

We did ride our bikes in Panama City on Gayle's Trails where we took a paved trail about 5 miles to Conservation Park where you can ride many more miles of unpaved trails throughout a wilderness area.

The park's trails were very bikeable, but some places were puddled from recent rains.

We also rode our bikes on Cape San Blas using a bike trail that starts in the south and takes you to the State Park in the north where we could get in 25 miles. There are a few places to eat and drink along the way. We did a similar ride on St. George Island where we rode from the town to the state park on a paved bike trail for another 19 miles.

This area had many oyster bar restaurants that we frequented while we were here. The Indian Pass Raw Bar had a unique self-service honor system of tracking your beer consumption. The oysters weren't bad either.

Just east of Apalachicola, we ate more seafood at Lynn's Quality Oysters by the bayside.

This viewpoint from a park nearby our stay was a great place to catch the sunset.