It is narrow, takes about 1.5 hours to drive from coast to coast, but if you were to drive north-south, wow! It's never ending! So after 8 long hours of drive, I am still in Florida.
The vegetation of Florida does change from south to north, so does the terrain. In the south, it's absolutely flat with sparse pine trees or water grass. As I drove towards north, the highway starts to take dives and climbs. The landscape becomes more dense with green and it almost reminds me of Atlanta, except the vegetation is mostly pine trees.
Actually, I don't know if they are really pine trees, just trees with thin trunk and needle-like leaves.
Then I realized what's going on. This is the main activity here, forest industry! What I am seeing are tree farms. The entire northern Florida is tree plantations for controlled logging. I would drive through a patch of tall green trees, then bare, then green, then bare.... It was also interesting to be driving through these small towns away from the main route or tourist attractions. Lots of abandoned shops and businesses, replaced by the big box retailers. There are a lot of very interesting artifacts to photograph along the way, but they are all on someone else's property, and in this part of the country, you want to be aware of the double barrowed shot guns.
So I arrived at Panama City Beach. The drive seemed never ending, and I can finally relax on the famous white sand! Is the sand silky like described? I don't think this is all that fine, but it definitely feels smoother. Whatever, it's a beach, that's all that matters!
The water was filled with sea weed, but warm. I almost wanted to take a dive, but didn't want to climb up the beach looking like the Swamp Thing. Oh well, I will just hit some sunset photos.
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