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Panama City Beach, FL – June 1-5, 2023  – Sun Outdoors – Site #72

13.0 miles per gallon.  971 total miles

We started our second of two back-to-back weekend trips. Traveling to Panama City Beach, FL and staying at Sun Outdoors PCB.  Another long trip for us but both were successful.

We planned to do a little scouting of other RV parks while in PCB, checking out the beach and also to babysit Nellie while Chan and Kate attended Sarah Kate’s wedding.

Thursday: 
We had an early start leaving about 6:30am. Travel out of Jackson and to Mobile was great. Nice and smooth, the way we like it. Over the years we have done our best to avoid the Mobile Bay Tunnel (George Wallace Tunnel) due to traffic issues, which we did again today with success. Continuing to travel on I-10 East and decided to stop at Buc-ees about 25 miles east of Mobile. This is one crazy place but parked away from the store and went inside. It’s absolutely crazy.  We fueled up before leaving and started the final leg of the trip to Sun Outdoors PCB. (154 miles, 2.5 hours)

The traffic and wind picked up about an hour from PCB, so we slowed down and made it just fine. Sun Outdoors is a nice park but very tight. We made it to our site and backed in with no issue. Our neighbor came in about an hour after we arrived and there were plenty issues getting into their site.  (popcorn moment) We and another person help them get in. That 30 footer almost didn’t make it.

Chan and Kate made it in and dropped off Vinny. They had another 45 minute drive to get to their condo which was only 12 miles away. Nellie (4 months old baby) and Vinny (the dog) did good on the all day drive.

First day is a success.

Friday:
I wanted to ride the beach to see the beautiful blue water. We didn’t know you just can’t see the beach or the water from the highway for all the buildings. So that was disappointing. We also wanted to find where the public beach access and parking were. We saw plenty of beach access but very little parking. So later that evening we got the map and went back to get our bearings so we could take a beach stroll later.

While we were out scouting , we went to a couple RV Parks to check them out and then took the route through 30A so we would know what folks are talking about. Very nice but not my crowd there. We didn’t have our act together before we left I guess.

Cathy, babysat Nellie for the rehearsal dinner at Chan and Kate’s condo so that was nice.

Saturday:
We went to the public beach access and walked the beach and enjoyed the emerald blue water. There was a lady running the beach pointing at a shark. We never saw it and there were no issues.

When we got back to the RV Park, Jack had a work project and I sunned my legs and sat under the awning. The weather was nice in the shade and breezy.

We left to babysit at 3 o’clock. Nellie was good and it was good to hold her again since it’s been a while. Cathy got to the condo about 7pm. That evening the moon was huge and beautiful. We walked the dogs and called it a day.

Sunday:
Sunday morning we started the partial trip home. Heading to Gulf Beach Rv Resort, Biloxi MS for a quick stop overnight before heading home on Monday. Our travel time was about 4 hours with one stop. We traveled the scenic route on Hwy 98 from PCB to Pensacola before catching I-10 the rest of the way to Biloxi. we were surprised by the fuel mileage on this route. 14.5 mpg.

We thought that we might stop at a Harvest Host on the way home but thought better of that due to the high temperatures. Just too hot to dry camp. The three dogs traveled well. We stopped at the rest area just outside of Pensacola. We met another Airstream and chatted with them for a while. They were from New Orleans and they were on their way home from Key West, FL. Key West is on our bucket list so we stayed longer than normal, gleaning  all the information we could from them.

Arriving in Biloxi, we did a minimal set up since we were leaving the next morning. Just  an overnighter. We left Monday morning and got home around noon.  Another great trip.

Diane