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30A's lazy days are gone
Scenic route tries to hang on to its identity during growth
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SANTA ROSA BEACH ? As a child in the early 1960s, Brenda Rees could walk down the yellow line in the center of Walton County Road 30A and not give a thought to traffic.
Rees, whose father built her family?s first beach house on Eastern Lake in the late 1950s out of the wood from his father?s barn, walked on the yellow line the nearly three miles to a small country market in Seagrove Beach because the black asphalt was too hot on her bare feet.
Cars rarely drove by. Rees, now 54, didn?t have to worry about crowded beaches, either.
?I could go to the beach all day long and would not see another person,? she said.
That was decades before the planned communities of Seaside, WaterColor and Rosemary Beach sprouted along CR 30A in South Walton. Back then, the live oaks and scrub brush along the road was sparsely dotted with one-story concrete Florida cottages splashed in pastel hues.
These days CR 30A isn?t so quiet. Development has obscured much of the view of the Gulf of Mexico with multi-million dollar homes and created traffic congestion along the road.
Residents along CR 30A believe the area has maintained a special character despite development. But some worry that traffic and development could negatively affect the area?s future.................
http://www.nwfdailynews.com/article/12474
.
30A's lazy days are gone
Scenic route tries to hang on to its identity during growth
SANTA ROSA BEACH ? As a child in the early 1960s, Brenda Rees could walk down the yellow line in the center of Walton County Road 30A and not give a thought to traffic.
Rees, whose father built her family?s first beach house on Eastern Lake in the late 1950s out of the wood from his father?s barn, walked on the yellow line the nearly three miles to a small country market in Seagrove Beach because the black asphalt was too hot on her bare feet.
Cars rarely drove by. Rees, now 54, didn?t have to worry about crowded beaches, either.
?I could go to the beach all day long and would not see another person,? she said.
That was decades before the planned communities of Seaside, WaterColor and Rosemary Beach sprouted along CR 30A in South Walton. Back then, the live oaks and scrub brush along the road was sparsely dotted with one-story concrete Florida cottages splashed in pastel hues.
These days CR 30A isn?t so quiet. Development has obscured much of the view of the Gulf of Mexico with multi-million dollar homes and created traffic congestion along the road.
Residents along CR 30A believe the area has maintained a special character despite development. But some worry that traffic and development could negatively affect the area?s future.................
http://www.nwfdailynews.com/article/12474
.
aggieb, I was just going to say to pirate: did you have to say that out loud? geeeesh.