Crestview, Florida

September 24-October 7, 2017

Jane’s drivers license was due for renewal.  In person.  Her appointment September 14 had been washed away by Hurricane Irma so we headed for Crestview, Florida where our mail service is located.  It was a (mostly) easy drive from Chattanooga with lots of cotton fields along the way, though a photo through the window of a moving coach doesn’t do it justice.

The drive got a little tiring toward the end of the nearly 400 miles when the navigation system routed us on various county roads.  Here’s a shot of the screen showing the route near the Florida-Georgia border.

Jane was worried because her license had expired on the 22nd and she was a little unsure about using the mail service as a permanent address, but by 9 am Monday she had her license and both she and Dave were registered to vote in Okaloosa County.  The situation of full-time RVers was known to folks in both the drivers license and voter registration offices.  Interestingly, Florida law allows the Superintendent of Elections to assign an address to people who lack a permanent physical residence in the county.  So, for voting purposes, Jane and Dave live at the courthouse!

The tree pictured below was near the campground.

Topsail Hill Preserve State Park

Topsail Hill Preserve State Park east of Destin got its name from the 25′ dune that resembles a topsail.  The park includes 1600 acres with dune lakes, old growth longleaf pine forests, over three miles of sand beaches, and wetlands.  

The park was offering a geocache challenge that featured 12 caches not on the Geocaching ap with which we were familiar.  These finds required the entering of coordinates instead of identifying caches on a map.  The brochure offered great information about the history, geography, and biology of the area.

We found seven of the caches before deciding to call it a day.  The temperature was 93, the trails had almost no shade, and we were out of water.  We’d do it again at a different time of year.

Moving On

We would have stayed in Crestview a little longer (there are several interestingly-looking state parks in the area) but Hurricane Nate was on its way and expected to make landfall just west of us.  We abandoned the idea of going west toward Mobile and New Orleans and headed east instead to Live Oak with the idea of moving south from there and attending the Lake County Folk Festival October 14-15.