2017 Florida RV Trip, Days 28-29, Emerald Beach Park & Christmas Day

We got in to Navarre, on Florida’s Emerald Coast, around 2:30 on Saturday afternoon, got checked into Emerald Beach RV Park, and signed up for the Christmas Eve potluck dinner, which required a quick trip to the store to pick up the ingredients for our dessert.  Like most places here, the RV park is located on a fairly narrow strip of land between the highway and the Santa Rosa Sound with Santa Rosa Island across the water.

The park has 71 sites along five rows running from the road to the beach and we are in site 46.  This is the entrance and small pool area.

This is our site, one back toward the highway, and down toward the water.

                                                                   

          

There is a clubhouse with kitchen, a covered deck, long pier, and small beach areas – one for people and one for pets.

And this the way a real Bama fan's site looks while awaiting the big bowl games.

The utilities all worked well, the 105 channel cable TV and WiFi both worked great and our satellite had an open spot through the trees – I prefer the dish to cable because of the convenient program guide, the ease of moving around, and the ability to record shows.

The park threw a Christmas dinner where they provided turkey, ham, and dressing and the attendees brought potluck dishes – Bev made some chocolate cupcakes and brownies. It was all good except for one major oversight (for me) – no gravy – turkey, dressing and mashed potatoes with no gravy is well, well it’s downright un-American.

Everything was going great on Christmas eve until we got a knock on the door about 7pm to be told we were in someone else’s spot and turns out we were.  When we arrived, it was the only vacant spot in that row and two sites removed from where we were supposed to be, so I just assumed it was ours and didn’t even look at the site number.  When we looked, there was still someone in our site so we talked with the staff and just moved to a vacant site for the night.  I think they may have people coming in without registering and staying for free.  Oh well, it was my fault for not making sure I was in the correct site to begin with and I will alert the office about my suspicions.

  

On Christmas morning we moved to our correct site, got re-set up, and planned a few things to do.  Growing up in northern West Virginia, Christmas Day is supposed to be cold and hopefully snowy, so it’s difficult for me to get my head around sunny and 60F and surrounded by palm trees.  So to make it somewhat special, we decided to do something for the first time – a Christmas Day walk on the beach.  We headed across the sound to Navarre Beach and were surprised to find several others, especially on the fishing pier.  

This is as close as we could get to a white Christmas and the way the birds were fluffed up, you may have thought it was snow.

Then we made the 15 or so mile drive west to Panama City Beach and I was amazed at how much has been protected from development - the FL panhandle beaches are always so impressive.  A different but very nice Christmas day.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

12/24-12/25/17 Event Dates