Traveling The Florida North West Coast On SR 19 And US 98 To Pensacola Day 13, 14, & 15

Thursday, May 5, 2011
We are still trying to stay off main roads on the north west coast of Florida to really see the countryside.  At Chiefland, we kept having to turn around and go back to stores and look for the Gaters' shirts...Mike said he didn't think we would ever be able to leave Chiefland...we might just have to buy property there if we had to make anymore U-turns.  We saw the historic Swanee River.  this was a kind of pretty river too. 

Most of the rivers in this area weren't very pretty...they were dark and weedy.  We finally left Chiefland and headed towards Perry and Steinhatchee.    At Steinhatchee, we took a side trip..... the only road that traveled along the coast. The coast wasn't very pretty...it mostly looked like fishing areas. 

Can you see all the grass growing in the water?

The buildings were all in bad shape and most of the homes looked temporary...campers and trailers.  There do not seems to be industry or any plants for employment in this area.  We did hear there was a pulp mill, but we didn't see it. 

Also, no farming....however we did see fields with horses and cattle. 

 

The highway had tall Pine Trees, Palm trees, Scrub Oaks and Live Oaks with Spanish Moss on both sides of the roads for miles and miles. 

The land was swampy with saw grass, mud beds, and stagnate water with Lilly pads.  Mike said it looked like where they filmed the movie Deliverance. 

The only stores were bait shops, boat launches, and a couple of small gas stations. 

 

 I had tried to get Mike to stop at a station before we went down that road that had gas for $3.88 but he wouldn't.  So of course when we get way down the road, there was only one gas station and it was $3.99...I told him so.

Here we are...our new high on gas prices....$3.99.

  There was a sheriff's car there and Mike asked her where the beach was.  She said we had just passed it.  We went back and we could 'definitely see why we missed it.  It was tiny, murky, grassy, some sand and giant rocks.  Several people were laying out sun tanning.  Not my kind of beach!  There were prisoners there cleaning up the area and also later on we saw prisoners picking up litter by the roads.  We had to drive back to SR 19 on the same road we came down on.

We drove a little while longer on SR 19, through Salem and Perry...still lots of trees and not pretty at all.  Finally SR19 turned into US 98 and we headed west towards Panacea and Apalachicola.  This was kind of along the coast, but there seemed to be barrier islands there. 

 It started looking a little prettier, but the beaches were sandy with lots of tree trunks stuck in them and lots of Pelicans.  Most were brown Pelicans, but I did see one that was white with a gigantic wing span.  He was flying along the bridge.  The houses were looking more like homes and much prettier, but it still seemed to be a fishing area.
We were surprised to see quite a few motorcycles along this road.

 We drove on to Port St. Joe and decided to spend the night there and eat dinner there,  We stayed in a Main Stay Suites.  It was very nice...non-smoking, king size bed, living area and small kitchen area.  They had a pool, but no hot tub! :(

We ate at a local Mexican Restaurant called Peppers.  It was very good and pretty reasonable.

We missed the entertainment...it was getting ready to start just as we left.