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- Panama City
Beach
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Stats.:
Route:
- Biloxi(MI)
 9010
- 98
- Panama City Beach(FL)
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- Road Kill:
- UNKNOWN----7
- Birds------1
- Raccoons---3
- Armadillos
1
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Today was a laundry day. This would not
have warranted a mention, if it was not for the
fact that, as my machine went into its spin
cycle, the car's alarm went off. This happens a
lot. It goes off if you just lean on the trunk.
But people were gathered by the window, looking
out at the parking lot and shaking their heads.
So, I got worried. When I got outside I saw that
some guy in a cream van with wood-effect
paneling had reversed into my car! A moment
later a squad car arrived. The officer had been
across the street when he saw it happen. My
car's driver side wing was a mangled mess. The
van was unscathed. In many ways I was lucky
because some how he had missed the wheel, the
door and the lights. So, the car still works. I
was also lucky that the police were there to
control the situation, take information from us
and fill out an official report. After a short
time the original squad car was called away and
another arrived to finish up the work. The man
made some feeble attempt at pointing the blame
at me but shut up when he saw the look on both
the officer's and my own faces. After the forms
were filled out, the man and the squad car left,
I put my washing in the dryer and started
calling around to get the insurance claim on the
way. Everyone was incredibly helpful. The other
customers made reassuring comments and offered
help. Even so it took a few hours before I could
leave.
I felt like a nervous basket case and
just wanted to get the hell away from
Biloxi.
As I crossed into
Alabama, the beautiful
homes stopped and the surrounding land was made
up mainly of white sandy ground with pine or
spruce trees. This continued until I was well
into Florida and past
Fort Walton beach. Now I could see the
Gulf of Mexico through
the line of beach houses. This entire area looks
like a carbon copy of much of the
Costa Del Sol. In both
cases, beautiful, wooded beaches are being
cleared and made into desirable beach front
properties. Here, the architecture is only very
slightly American Colonial. But it is so washed
out and genericised, that it could be anywhere.
One beach community -
Seaside - was so
putridly cute, with its pastel whiter shades of
pail, that I felt ill. Naturally everyone was in
four wheel drive vehicles and wearing
Timberland.
I continued on to Panama City
Beach, home of MTV's Spring Break
'97. It is Friday night, so I should really
check it out. But I
will attempt to get online and update these
pages before I head out. Let us hope my luck is
better in this area.
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