Gulf Coast and Beyond

Leaving New Orleans was a wrench. We had such a great time and had gotten into the way of things. But hey oh, we need to move on and see what happens along the road.
The highway out of NOLA was the H90 and takes us through places with names steeped in US history such as Biloxi and Mobile Alabama, after which we went onto the H98, hugging the coast all the way from Pensacola through to Perry in Florida.

Our first days driving took us to Destin in Florida. Along the way, it was obvious that all the housing was newish, built within the past 5 years or so. Of course, this whole coastline had been hit by two massive hurricanes recently, Katrina in 2005 and Gustav and Ike in 2008. You can buy an acre of prime coast building land from $200,000 which considering where this is, is really cheap. But of course there are disadvantages.
The houses are built on top of wooden and concrete stilts, some as high as 18feet.

The beaches along this coastline are pure powder  sand and are empty. But it was over 100F.

We stopped overnight at a fine hotel in Destin next to this place. http://www.fudpucker.com/

Now we wouldn't normally do a place like this, but they had alligators and here they are.

This was an albino alligator that had to be kept separate from the others as they would kill it and eat it. Quite sad really. Jake took a really liking to this wee chap.

We left Destin the next morning and headed along H98. This road really hugs the coastline and some of the small towns are just brilliant. Probably not changed much, apart from hurricanes in the last 100 years.

Our next night was spent in Perry, Florida. There's nothing in Perry other than a through road, a couple of motels and a BBQ and Mexican restaurant. We did all three of the available sleep, food and drink buildings.

Believe it or not, these 'Margarita's' were two for one!!!

So we'd reached Northern Florida and it's five days before our 30th wedding anniversary. What to do?