Continuing West

It rained for most of the night last night, so there were pools of standing water all over the campground this morning.  It drizzled all through breakfast but tapered off so we were able to take a long walk on the beach.

St. George Island is an interesting place.  A narrow barrier island, 22 miles long, it is packed with vacation homes and miles of beach.  The state park occupies the eastern nine miles of the island, so the vacation homes abruptly disappear as you drive into the state park.  And, since the campground is several miles from the entrance, you get the feeling that you are on an uninhabited island. You and, of course, sixty other campers in the campground.

Nine miles of beach is a lot of beach to walk.  We gave it our best shot, but probably covered not much more than a mile.  We maybe would have done more but the cold wind and the heavy grey skies bade us to move on.  It was another 2.5 hours to our next destination, not because it was so far away but because we had to drive across almost the entire island at 25 miles per hour.  Takes forever.

We’ll have to visit St. George another time when the weather is nicer.  It’s worth some additional exploration.

We stopped in the town of Apalachiola, at the John Gorrie State Museum.  This tiny place honors Dr. John Gorrie who, in his quest to provide cooler, drier air for yellow fever patients, constructed a refrigeration machine in 1844 which could freeze water. The compressor could be powered by a horse, water, or steam power.

Sadly, even though he is known as the father of HVAC, he never benefited from his invention and died penniless.  Ice was a big business and Gorrie was a direct threat to the established ice industry. Its magnates started a public relations smear campaign against Gorrie. A New York editor, for example, quipped that, "Some crank down in Apalachicola, FL, a Doctor John Gorrie, claims he can make ice as good as God Almighty!" 

A replica of his machine sits in this museum.  In a testament to the importance of this invention, the real machine is in the Smithsonian.

Gorrie was granted patent number 8080 for this invention in 1851.  I find it interesting how many patents there are now.  In 2003 I was granted a patent with the number 6,653,831.  And that was over 20 years ago.

This machine and a few wall displays occupied less than a quarter of the space.  The remainder was dedicated to promoting Florida State Parks.  So even though it is dubbed as the Ice Machine Museum, it really is mostly about state parks.

On our way into Panama City, we happened to pass an auto glass place so we dropped in and asked about getting the windshield fixed.  They were not busy at all and we finally got the big star right in the middle of my vision taken care of.  Now we don’t have to worry about it cracking as we head into colder temperatures in the next several days. 

We checked into St Andrews State Park in Panama City at 4pm.  We are now in Central Time Zone but our hunger was still in Eastern Time Zone.  So we turned around and found a Culver’s in Panama City Beach. As usual, Deb ordered the kids’ meal and we asked for the senior discount.

We walked the Panama City Beach for a while until the sun set, hoping to catch one of those spectacular Florida sunsets.  Florida can serve up some amazing sunsets.   Spectacular or not, the clearing skies and the mild temperatures made for a pleasant walk on the beach.