March 13- March 20, 2020

Carrabelle has a population of 2,500 people. It’s a cozy little beach town and our RV park, Carrabelle Beach RV Resort, was across the street from the beach, next door to the Camp Gordon Johnston WWII museum and two lots over from the Carrabelle Lighthouse.

I suppose it’s fair to say that I’ve been conditioned to see the word ‘resort’ and envision a massive, 40+ acre location with multiple pools, dining options, on-site shopping and touristy day trips. The RV community has borrowed this terminology and to them (us?!) a resort basically just means that RV Park caters to adults and has full hook ups. All I can say is that beach life ain’t bad!! The entire park was extremely nice with its laundry facility, screened in porch-which we used for school one day, a huge pool, covered outdoor meeting spaces, activity center (complete with kitchen) and mens/women’s bathhouse. We met a lovely Canadian at the activity center who saw me and Ben doing schoolwork. She was getting ready for a meeting with the Quilts for Valor Foundation. We saw her arranging tables and ironing out different fabrics. Ben and I found it incredibly touching that she would do this for American Vietnam Vets. As she put it, “American defense policy helps to keep Canadians safe too.”

In other news, Riggs is working on becoming an expert weaver himself.

School this week occurred outside. Mornings were best so we could hit the pool when the heat was upon us. Ben and Izzy continue to meet a bunch of kids along the way. They’re getting very good at making fast friends.

We celebrated St. Patricks day eating through the lovely treats the leprechauns left for the kids as well as the green lime Jell-O we made. Izzy and Ben also bulit Leprechaun Houses complete with green walls, tiny beds, chairs, a fork, knife and spoon so they could be comfortable while eating their pine cone dinners.

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Carrabelle Light- Crooked River Lighthouse. This is our second lighthouse to visit- back to back with Port St. Joe. There’s always some great history behind each of these. This particular lighting design was the first of its kind, all the way from France. The government sold off everything when the lighthouse was decommissioned and the light was separated from the structure for years, until this year! Turns out it was in New Orleans in a storage room. It was just returned the day before we toured. I snuck a quick photo of the original!

Needless to say, the views from the top of the lighthouse were breathtaking, once we got all the way up there!

Each morning we got up to exercise. Ben and Clark did EMOMs/running while Izzy and I do our own sets. Having the beach across the street was perfect since there was a great morning breeze and hey, the view ain’t half bad either. One particular morning we were on our run and caught a pocket of cold air trapped right out front of the lighthouse. I wish I was better at science and could explain that to Izzy without having to ‘search it up’ with my pal, Google. We’re all learning (and re-learning) on this trip.

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The Camp Gordon Johnston Museum was unique in that there were so many items donated and on display. “Camp Gordon Johnston opened in 1942 for the sole purpose of training Infantry Divisions and their support units in amphibious operations by U. S. Army Engineer Special Brigades [ESB].  This camp trained a quarter of a million men, closing in June of 1946. Three infantry divisions and two special brigades left here after receiving amphibious training…” The kids and I saw a mock up of the amphibious vehicles used for training. They also watched a few animated films created by Dr. Seuss while he was enlisted. He was stationed at Warner Bros. and put together quite a few animated movies highlighting ‘Private Snafu‘. We also read up on the dogs who were trained to serve and regarded as heros in their own right. In one of these pictures, Ben is pointing to a patch he believes was from the USS Alabama. We also took pictures of the 3Rs poster; this is a part of the outreach Clark’s GIS team leads for formerly used defense sites (FUDS) as a part of their contract through the Department of Defense. It was pretty darn cool to see in a small museum like this.

Next stop, back to Port St. Joe to ride this wave out through the end of April (and perhaps May, if needed). I really, really hope they don’t close down the beaches nor Presnell’s RV Park.