A SoWal faker!

I thought you all would get a kick out of this story, so I had to share.

I have been coming to the SoWal area for about 15 years (since 6th grade) and my husband started coming with me once we started dating our junior year in high school. It's the first place he ever told me he loved me and promised me we'd one day marry on the beach. We did just that in Oct 2005 and even concieved our first and second child down there! We're true SoWaler's! :rofl: Even our 3 yr old son wakes up almost every day asking if we're going to the beach!

A guy my husband used to work for just recently bought a vacation home in Watercolor. They had never been to the area in the past and apparently only choose it because it was a foreclosure and the realtor said the area would eventually boom again and it was a great opportunity. Anyway, they make us sick now. Every one of their cars have 30-a stickers. Every time we see them they have some article of clothing pertaining to a town along 30-a. And they tell everyone about it and how beautiful it is. My husband even heard him say they have been going for years (which he knows is a lie).

My husband was telling me this sotry and he's like....."it's like....they are SoWal fakers!" I about died laughing so hard!

LOL...kinda like those of us who are natives feel sometimes as if we "have been invaded!"

Glad you all love our area so much! Thanks for sharing.

Please tell me they got a personalized license plate w/ a Sowal reference - that would cement their "gaper trying too hard to be local" status! :rofl:

Haha....not yet! But if you see Ohio plates on an Escalade with reference to SoWal....that's them! Haha!

And you should! It's a beautiful place.....who let the secret out so many years ago! My husband and I are only 26, but we wish we could have seen the old Grayton Beach like we've seen in photos.

And while we'll never be a native, someday we'll be a local! Eglin, Eglin, any openings? J/K!

I'm glad I don't drive a Esclade. I drive a Toyota.

My story in response to a poster who asked how did you get to Sowal:


A few years ago I was at one of the Chamber of Commerce Luncheons and one of my table mates, a much younger person , asked me how I came to live in South Walton and I told him my story of being a native of Walton County; leaving for college; not living here for many years, but always returning for the beach; and then finally returning to live...he listened intently and then in this hushed voice he said: "Wow, you must feel as though you've been invaded!" It was funny and I had not voiced that before, but he was exactly right.

Sometimes I sit on the beach at Grayton or Blue Mountain, or just west of Seaside(about where the WaterColor Inn is now) and close my eyes; and I can almost feel how hot the sand from the dunes felt in the midday sun; how the wind would blow the fine grains of sand from the top of the dunes..into our eyes or mouth...how when the sun would set, it was as though we were the only people on Earth...and how from a grocery-shopping trip to Ft Walton, we would drive, and drive, and drive, and after the little Grimaldi building ...there was nothing: no cars, no houses, no lights...just the narrow strip of highway and the sand dunes as far as we could see...
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Honestly, that must be an incredible memory to even have. We live in Ohio, not exactly one of the most commericalized places on Earth and even here, there aren't many places even in my childhood that I can say I went somewhere in the middle of no where. Even now I'm not sure where I would go. Everything has been so built up as far as I can remember (although I do remember building forts in the newly developed neighborhoods of the early 90s). It's just nothing compared to what you are describing. It just makes me fear the world my kids are growing up in. We're expecting our third in December and my husband just said what a shame it is that our kids won't know a world where they couldn't drive to the corner and have 10 places to choose for carry out dinner. Sad![/QUOTE]

this is what is particularly sad--and it is also sad that you find the same 10 places in almost any corner of any city in all the states in the country! One of the things that has remained wonderful about our area is that so far we don't have all the sameness...I love the local restaurants and the stores.
Everyone seems to...makes me wonder why we have so much of the same thing everywhere, when, most everyone, when asked, say they prefer the local restaurants and stores. (PS. it was many years ago when I was a child here. LOL--the memories are special though--and the energy and light are the same as it was then, even if there are more houses and stores, etc.)