We needed a place to stay between our two agility weekends. So we drove most of the way to our next trial which is being held near Pensacola. We had reservations at Navarre Beach Resort.
The park is right on the beach - perpendicular to the beach. There are four rows of RV spaces. These rows go from the road to the beach. The closer you are to the beach the more expensive the spot - over $60 a night to be near the beach. Since dogs aren't allowed on the beach, even on leash, there was no sense in paying to be close to the beach. So we stayed about half way between the road and the beach.
Apparently, we are near some sort of Naval Base. They must all sleep during the day as it is very peaceful. But they are in full force at night shooting all kinds of things.
After Mike took the dogs on a nice long hike, we decided to take a little driving tour of the area. I must say this was definitely the most mystifying trip we've ever taken. We are on the mainland but just a mile away is the bridge to a very long and narrow island. There is a large sign there saying "Welcome to Navarre Beach, Florida's Best Kept Secret, Whitest Sand in the World." We are CERTAIN that it truly is the Best Kept Secret - and from what we can see it will continue to be a secret, and we definitely think it should remain a secret.
This was by far the most odd place we have ever seen. My goodness, where to start! The first thing you notice when your get on the island is white sand - everywhere. I'm not kidding you when I say that the entire landscape is sand. Every single inch of land on that island is covered in white sand. They have to plow the roads all the time just so you can find the road. The roads seemed very narrow but it was just because the sand was encroaching on to the road. People don't have to do any yard work as it's just sand. There truly was not one bit of plant life anywhere except right next to the beach where there was some of that real tall dry grass blowing in the wind. A few people had planted some palm trees in their yard to give some sense of life. But truly it was just all white sand.
From what we could tell, there must have been a storm at some point that hit this island. Most every home is built at least 15-20 feet off the ground on cement stilts. And almost every home there showed some strong storm damage. However, there really weren't all that many existing homes.
There were absolutely no stores of any kind on the island. But, there was MAJOR construction going on. There were at least 200 news homes in the process of being built. And what really confused us was that they were building 20 or 30 HUGE hotels or condo units. They were each about 30 stories tall and were very wide.
This island looked like a ghost town. Of the homes that were there, most of them were definitely unoccupied. And, I'd guess that 90% of them were for sale. Mike had just made the comment that at least you wouldn't have to do any yard work. Just about the time that he said that, we noticed someone had a small tractor - looked like a little snow plow but we're guessing that was his sand plow!
Anyway, there was barely any sign of life at all on the island except for all the construction workers building all this new housing. I don't know where they think they are going to find people to fill all these units. The island really wasn't all that pretty even. I asked Mike what insurance company would ever want to insure a house here as it looks they are heavily damaged fairly regularly. He said they get federal flood insurance. Let me just say, this really angered me. First, no one should be allowed to build on this island period. And secondly, we as tax payers shouldn't have to pay for all these rich people to rebuild their houses every year or two when they are blown to shreds and slammed by huge masses of water.
Okay, on to something different as that really upset me. But just suffice it to say that we were both mystified by this island. It really was the most strange thing we've seen in our travels.
This whole entire area (not just that island but this whole section of Florida), consisting of hundreds of miles of coastline, is just not for us. Not one inch of beach are dogs allowed on. In fact, I've never seen so many signs saying "No Pets On Beach." I'd say there is a sign every 100 yards or so. They also state that there is a minimum $500 fine for taking your dog on the beach. Why would anyone want to live here....well maybe people without pets. Hard for my brain to comprehend!
We didn't get out of the car on this trip so I'm sorry we have no pictures of this. You'll just have to believe us that this was a strange place.
Oh, you want to know how secret Navarre is? It is so much of a secret that when we put it on the internet to check the weather it says there is no such place! And when Mike tried to find it on his Streets & Trips software it also said there was no such place. I guess that's one way to keep it a secret!!
Debbie
1/23/07
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