THE OLDSMOBILE
After studying the beach for a few minutes, we knew it could be done. The beach was flat, I mean, flat! There are those rare occasions, when the tide withdraws after a heavy thunderstorm, and the sand is just packed down hard as a rock. Flat and hard as the beach in Daytona, and that’s what gave us the inspiration that it could be done. We just packed ourselves into the car, and still had room for the neighbors, and the neighbor’s kids. All the kids were small, maybe the oldest was seven and the youngest was three. There were four kids, and four adults, but it wasn’t cramped at all because it was a big car.
We set out in an Oldsmobile, a white 1956 Oldsmobile, and the year was probably 1958. There were a few good places to get a vehicle to the beach in those days, and the best one was not far down the road. The Red Clay Road was a familiar spot for most of us in those days. It was the place where red clay had been deposited, and a crude road was made straight down to the Gulf. This was the common place to launch your boat and an easy place to get your jeep onto the beach. But we didn’t really know if anybody had ever tried this in an Oldsmobile, and we didn’t care. We knew it could be done.
The only real decision when we got to the road was whether to go left or right, east or west. We knew in both directions we might encounter the outflows of several of the lakes. The coastal dune lakes are the pride of this area. They are spectacular bodies of beautiful waters, and each had a channel, sometimes called an outflow by newcomers, more often called inlets by the locals.
To the east was Eastern Lake, and it was always a possibility that the inlet had broken through, especially after a rain, and there might be a torrent of coffee-colored water that would have stopped our joyride in short order. A few miles further in the opposite direction was Western Lake with absolutely the same chance that we would be stopped by rushing water. But westward would be the better choice. It would be a bit longer ride, even if it proved to be abbreviated, and the ride would bring us past our summer home, sitting majestically on the bluffs of Seagrove.
The ride turned bumpy as we turned off the blacktop onto The Red Clay Road. It was hard packed with a multitude of ruts that made the going adventurous. Then it came time for the turn, which would have to be made rather fast. The transition from road to beach had to be done smoothly without a tight turn and with ample velocity.
We headed westward, of course, and the morning sun was at our backs. It was a cool October morning, when the memories of the hot summer were distant in the rearview mirror. We drove into a bright blue and white landscape, destination unknown. The Gulf was immaculate. It wasn’t perfectly glassy, but had a surface spread out as far as the eye could see with an array of tiny waves. The wind speed was perhaps 6 miles per hour coming out of the north. Our wind speed was more like 45, and our windows were wide open. Everybody had their arms out the window, and we must have looked like some strange squatty airplane as our joyride turned into an autumn cruise.
Before we knew it, we were passing the mighty bluffs of Seagrove. From a small knoll of sea oats rose a steep mountain of dense vegetation spotted with small patches of white sand. At the top was a sprawling panoramic stand of twisted scrub oaks and stately magnolias. Interspersed in this majestic grove was a handful of concrete block summer homes, mostly painted white, with shallow rooflines, as if they were trying to hide inside the trees. The ironic thing about Seagrove is that while the view of the Gulf from the Bluff is breathtakingly beautiful, the view of the Bluff from the Gulf is incredibly awesome as well. We passed our house, in quick order, and headed into the wilderness, destination unknown.
As we approached the stretch of beach before Grayton, we knew our ride might come to a close, but when we got closer, we saw that the inlet was closed up and Western Lake was not going to be an obstacle in our journey. The sand was flat and packed and we cruised past the backed up inlet in style. The town of Grayton huddled in the distance, a collection of wooden beach cottages that had been sleeping, unchanged, near the dune line, for a hundred years.
Then it was truly into the wilderness. No more towns like Grayton or Seagrove. We passed long stretches of sand dunes and scrub oaks that stretched to the horizon. Alligator Lake came and went, and soon before we knew it, Little Redfish and Big Redfish were upon us. We knew another gushing outflow might be looming, but we passed it without missing a beat.
We looked at each other, and then looked at the gas gauge, and I believe it dawned on us all at the same time that it was no longer destination unknown. The game had changed. The adventure had deepened. We knew we could make it. The sand was flat and packed. It was destination Destin.
There were a few more lakes that might stop us, but nothing was going to dampen our spirits. We knew we could make it. We were riding a 1956 Oldsmobile to the ends of the earth, if we wanted to. Well, Oyster Lake couldn’t stop us. Its outflow was just a trickle that we splashed through with rolls of laughter. And then the threat of Stallworth loomed heavy on the horizon. We knew of no other lakes past that point that connected to the Gulf. Once past Stallworth it would be all systems go. Then, just as before, as we approached the low plain where we knew a possibility of rushing water might stand in our way, we witnessed another slight trickle and we blasted through it again. But, of course, we always knew we could make it.
It was smooth cruising the rest of the way. Campbell Lake has never presented an outlet to the Gulf in a hundreds of years. It was just easy cruising, past miles of pristine gorgeous Florida beaches. Everlasting miles of sand dunes, sea oats, scrub oaks and pines. And the Gulf of Mexico was our defining friend: the caressing shoulder of our hard packed highway. We can’t quite remember if we made it all the way to Destin or not. But we knew nothing could have stopped us until the East Pass. And who knows? A 1956 Oldsmobile might just have enough horsepower for that mighty leap.
