Grayton Beach State Park, Santa Rosa Beach, Florida
After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth. ~ Genesis 5:32
We’ve seen some pretty amazing places during our lifetime, but I’m not sure we’ve seen so much displayed in one place before.
The homes we passed on our 20-mile bike ride today, look like behemoths on the beach – their width matching their three (or sometimes even four) -story tall heights. Opulent in every way on the outside, we can only guess at what the inside looks like. Community after community displayed these mansions advertising worldly success. But the homes are so tightly packed together, it was rare to catch even a glimpse of the ocean during the entire ten miles we rode by. And silly us, we thought there might be a public beach access point. No way. Everything here is very exclusive. As Blaine said, these people make in a week what we’ve squirreled away in our lifetime of savings.
And yet, for all their awesomeness, they can’t hold a candle to what God has created in nature! Remember, He’s the one who gives the creativity and know-how to design and create these places. And provides the means to make the money to do so.
We picked up a flier for a custom home you can have built. As you can see, it’s quite the place! If you go to the website, you’ll discover that the classification for this style of home is . . . wait for it . . . you won’t believe it, trust me . . .
Cottage!
And it’s available for just $4,500,000. That’s not counting the land you have to purchase (possibly up to $2M), nor the furnishings. We don’t know if there are any community fees to pay for the privilege of living here. Wonder what utilities and taxes are???
Anyway, it was quite the ride we took on today.
Santa Rosa Beach has a 20-mile bike/pedestrian asphalted path and we happen to be sitting in the middle of it, so today we headed east. Ten miles out, ten back. It would’ve been fine, if a head wind hadn’t kicked up for our return, making even this relatively flat terrain somewhat difficult. But it kept us warm!
The guys are fastening each piece to the privacy fence.
There’s a guy on either side working.
We’ll go check it out on the way back.
All the dark parts were cobalt blue. It was stunning.
At the far east end, there was a restaurant called “Shades” where we had a light lunch before heading back. We ate outside, and the service was really slow, and by the end, we were freezing. The place lived up to its name because all the tables were in the shade! The longer we sat, the cooler we got. 😊 Food was pretty good.
My salad 
Blaine’s wings
We could’ve taken 1,000 pictures in here!
You can’t get through the gate to go to the beach unless you live there.
We were surprised we could even ride around in here.
I suspect that’ll change once the construction’s concluded.
We were gone roughly five hours and by the time we returned, we were pretty saddle sore, so we rode another ½ mile to the beach and ambled slowly down the beach. Emphasis on slowly. Aleve was added to the bedtime regimen tonight.
But before that, we drove to Pizza by the Sea for dinner. Excellent! And a very thin crust, so we managed to scarf down the entire large pie. We didn’t think this pizza would warm up well, as it started getting chewy as it cooled down. Yeah. That sounds good. It won’t reheat, so we have to finish it off now. 😊
