The Scent of Lavender

Wednesday, February 23rd – Leaving Grayton Beach to Panama City, Florida – Day 16

Packed up the trailer and got on the road. We were told that the highway 30A was beautiful so we started driving along. Before we went far, we went through towns called Seashore and Watercolour. These must have been planned and built as a group. The houses were painted in water colours, two storey beautiful little vacation rental buildings with narrow winding streets that fed the main strip. Everyone was riding bikes or golf carts around, sitting on patios have food. It looked like a beautiful place to have a summer home or retire to. We walked down the main strip for a little bit before we got back in the car. Further on 30A we went through palm tree lined avenue where it looked like the real wealth accumulated. No stops now but it was pretty pleasant to drive through.

As we drove down the coast, we entered Panama City and stopped to go to the beach for lunch and a swim. The kids gathered shells and we ate eclectic wraps of whatever we had in the lunch bag – apples, cheese, asparagus spears, mustard, peanut butter in some combination or another. The beach was a beach; wide, brilliant white sand and pretty vacant. The temperature was in the mid twenties. A lovely place to stop for lunch.

Our next stop was another Harvest Host stop, Southern Grace Lavender Farm. Read about it here: https://southerngracelavenderfarm.com/our-story. No water or electricity but they had an immaculate porto potty and hand washing station. Chickens were roaming the property and there was also a pig named Priscilla. It was a perfect evening; the temperature was warm but not hot, the breeze was blowing slightly and it was a beautiful setting. The lavender plants bloom in October so at this point they were only 3 or 4 inches tall and had no scent. We got the tour that outlined some of the basics of lavender farming and how they use a still to get lavender water and oil. They had a little store that smelt very much of lavender that I left Gen and Mary to explore while I took John to look at the pig.

We settled down to a dinner of rice and bean wraps. The farm provided free firewood and wifi which was a huge plus so I started a fire to sit around. We played some soccer.

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