West Palm Beach to Horseshoe Beach, Florida
Season two of 50 at 60. Different vehicle, different companion, different pace.
I picked up the RV on Monday. It’s the Mini-Winnie Class C RV. Loaded everything in, moved too fast, opened a cabinet door above the sink at exactly the wrong moment, and showed up to tell the guy I was ready to leave with blood running down my face. He offered me a napkin with the calm of someone who has seen this before. That’s how we started.
Penny was less than thrilled about the arrangement. She knows. I don’t know how she knows when we’re going somewhere, but she knows. By the time I was doing the final sweep of the condo she had disappeared into her regular hiding spot, which is not a large hiding spot and required some negotiating. Once she was in the bag she was fine. She’s a good traveler. She just requires a brief formal protest before she’ll cooperate.
The Route and the Plan
Section two is the South. Florida’s Panhandle coast, southern Alabama, a quick hop into Mississippi. Eight days, the cat along for the whole thing. I’d asked AI to put together a meal plan and a grocery list, used it as a starting point rather than a prescription, and found most of what I needed at Walmart. Sarasota Tim apparently videos himself navigating Walmart with a selfie stick. I can barely get a cart through without incident. Different skill sets.
The plan: slow down. Read. Write. Focus on photography in small spaces and small towns. The pace of this section was always going to be different from the Pacific Northwest — less driving, more sitting, more paying attention to what’s right in front of me.
Florida towns I’d only ever heard about from the Weather Channel were appearing on the GPS: Apalachicola, Port St. Joe, towns that exist mostly in the context of hurricane tracking and are, it turns out, actual places with actual people living in them. That felt worth noting.
The Beginner RV Checklist
Five things. I’ve decided there are five things that must be confirmed before moving the RV anywhere:
The awning. The electrical connection. The water hookup. The sewer. The cat.
I nearly left Horseshoe Beach with the awning extended, which would have removed it from the vehicle at the first tree. I caught it. This counts as a success but only barely. The checklist is now written down.
There’s also a sixth item I added at departure: tire chocks. I went to pull forward and nothing happened. The RV was chocked and I’d forgotten. Item six. I’m sure item seven is coming.
Five hours of driving burned $130 of diesel, which I mention so nobody goes into this with unrealistic expectations about RV economics.
Horseshoe Beach and the Kids on the Dock
Presnells Bayside Marina and RV Resort. One row back from the water, a little dock just in front, boats available to rent, the whole setup. I pulled in and within five minutes three kids had lost their crab net in the water. I hooked my leg around the edge of the pier, reached down, and got it out for them. That’s my community service for the day.
The sunset that evening was the kind that makes you understand why a couple from Georgia has been coming to this exact spot for sixty days a year for however many years. They found me walking the pier and told me: of those sixty days, about fifty of them have sunsets like this. I was here for one night and caught one. I’ll take those odds.
Fishermen silhouetted on the pier, paddle boarders on the water, the light going orange and then pink and then gone. The cat woke up when the sun went down, stretched, and looked at me as if to say: is this over now?
Not quite. Alabama next.
