It's Day 253......it's also January 14, 2020.....and we are in Navarre Florida

It's Day 253......it's also January 14, 2020.....and we are in Navarre Florida

We might not have been as road ready as I had thought! Whatever that bug was I had picked up back in Vidalia.....well it stuck around a bit. We made it around 123 miles from Vidalia and called it a day in a place called Columbia Mississippi....felt like I was having a bit of a relapse......or maybe it was just all the driving we had done in the past few days....500 or so miles might not sound like a lot.....but that's was quite an accomplishment for this trio......in the 8 months or so we have been at this.....we've barely made it a 100 miles at a time before finding another spot to hang out in...and learn about.

I Went to bed pretty early in Columbia..... feeling pretty cruddy and got up late the next morning..... feeling about the same….but drove some more anyways. That storm that had chased us out of Galveston might have passed..... but now there was talk of more bad weather in the area....so we just kept going. Guess I wasn’t really paying attention I put Mississippi in the rear view... and then Alabama…because it sort of caught me by surprise when I passed the sign that said “Welcome to Florida”. .....We'd covered just over 200 miles when we found Navarre.....It seemed like a pretty awesome place to look for a spot to park.....and Man did we find one! An awesome little park managed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. As we pulled into the 12 site park facing Pensacola Bay…I was finding it hard to believe this was a free boondocking site. We’ve boondocked now in some 12 states and I have yet to see one as well groomed and monitored as this one. Very nice FWC folks are on site several times a day checking in on folks. You can even go on their website and reserve spots…and I'm guessing this would be a popular spot during the spring and summer months. Well done Florida! Now lets see if we can put up with mosquitoes....yep....in January.

We spent a couple nights here in our cool little spot on Florida's Northwest Panhandle......and I had no idea....until after we had left that the movie Jaws 2 was filmed in large part....just up the beach a ways from where we had stayed.....seems the site was chosen due to the mild climate provided during filming....and the ability to replicate .... with a few props..... the look of the Martha's Vinyard coastal area ..... where the films plot was to have taken place.

And those white sandy beaches.....like the one Dougie and I walked several times during our stay.....turns out Navarre is famous for those beaches. Nearly pure crystal quartz.....some of the cleanest.....and purest beaches...... in the world.....the result of millions of years of rivers....like the Chattahoochee.....and the Apalachicola washing sediments from the Apalacha mountain range further inland...down through this area and evacuating into the gulf of Mexico....followed by the wave actions constantly washing over the sands.....and further purifying those sugary white beaches.

Navarre is also home to the longest fishing pier in the State of Florida....a 1545 foot long pier extending into the Gulf of Mexico and is famous for the fishing opportunity it provides.

The Gulf Island National Seashore......also calls Navarre home....a national park that attracts over 5 million visitors each year!

Learning of everything Navarre is today....it's hard to believe that as recently as the 1970's....fewer than 2000 folks called Navarre home......

.... just as we would discover in Louisiana....The list of names....of the native American tribes that have inhabited the area for centuries.... continues to grow..... here in Navarre....for the first time...I'd read of the Apalachee, Apalachicola, Timucua, and Pensacola people....in this part of the country......these folks...like so many across the continent would find themselves crossing paths with Spanish explorers as early as the 1500's. It would be another 150 years or so before American settlers would show up in the area.

The area was originally known as Eagan before it was renamed Navarre.....named after the Navarre province in Spain.

During the civil war...confederate troops built Fort McRee on Navarre beach to defend Pensacola Bay....Union troops would make several attempts to capture the bay...they were never successful...and remnants of the fort can still be seen on the beach today.

The Timber Industry In the mid-1800s would be the next big thing for Navarre....as it became a hub for the timber industry. The establishment of Bagdad Village as a lumber town played a significant role in the local economy. The town flourished thanks to logging and manufacturing, and many historic buildings from that era still stand....second place in the country we'd learn of an area being named bagdad.....the first one way back there in Arizona!

A Bridge constructed in the 1920's connected the area with nearby cities essentially beginning the era of tourism for Navarre.

The introduction of Eglin Air Force Base during WW2 would bring yet another era of development and growth to Navarre. Eglin would grow to become one of the largest military facilities in the country covering over 640 square miles....and by some measures....the largest Air Force Base in the world with the presence of over 20,000 military personnel patrolling 130,000 square miles of airspace, which includes over 120,000 square miles of overwater airspace in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Feels like the 40,000 or so folks that call Navarre home today....

And then.....one more click.......I spent our last night in Navarre doing a bit of reading about the one of the states we had just driven through....barely even stopping in.....Mississippi. Back in Louisiana....as I had just learned about that states incredible wealth.....and how so little of that wealth makes it to the residents of the state.....and in fact....in nearly all measures that matter....from education levels....to life expectancy, annual incomes, and poverty rates ..... the state ranks amongst the worst in the nation.....and on most of those lists....Mississippi ranks dead last....the poorest in the nation.....and again....I was curious ..... why. I mean.....I get it....there has to be a richest state....and a poorest state....on any list right.....but the disparities here... are striking. At the top of the list California....which literally owns the 5th largest economy in the world....which means an economy larger than most countries in the world......Places like Texas....New York.....and Illinois find their way to the top of that list as well.....There are thousands of ways to parse the numbers......and I'm no economist.....nor do I want to be....but if you read through.....and ask the internet enough questions....some interesting patterns begin to surface.....as I had learned in Louisiana.

And there are a couple of things that make Mississippi even more of a fascinating case study in economics. First of all....just as with Louisiana.....Mississippi poverty rates.... are not necessarily directly tied to the states economy.....Mississippi's economy is actually 37th in the nation at nearly 140 Billion per year.....which means there are 13 states in the country that generate less in revenues each year....Places like Montana.....South Dakota.....Vermont.....Wyoming.....Even Alaska....all have smaller economies than Mississippi.......but when you rank the states by things like poverty levels....mortality rates....you wont find any of those 5 at the bottom of the list.....and yet you will always find Mississippi there.

Another thing that set Mississippi apart for me.....was to learn....that the state actually started out....as was one of....and by some indicators....the richest state in the union. And it's really been in just the 150 years or so that the state plummeted from the top....to the bottom of the list. And the folks that live there.....were just along for the ride.....

So again i wondered.....what happened....and is happening here.

And turns out.....the first thing that happened....shoulda been fairly obvious to me ...... the civil war....and abolition of slavery.

Mississippi established itself early on and a key player in the cotton industry in the nation. With demand within the country....as well as globally growing exponentially....Mississippi's economy would grow rapidly.....and in a time when those cotton farmers didn't have to pay their labor force. If you take labor out of any economic calculation...well things look pretty different. So I guess maybe....in a lot of ways.....things were similar to today....at least in that of the money that is generated in the state.....very little of it went into the pockets of those that produced the products and services that generate the revenue.

But some other things began to take place as well.....in Mississippi.

As the rest of the country began to invest in things like infrastructure....and technologies that would produce more efficiencies among the work force.....Mississippi appears to have planted itself firmly in the past. With the state graced by a massive waterway system on which to move product cheaply.....and a cheap labor force....even after the abolishment of slavery.....the policy makers and plantation owners of the time....saw no need to take money out of their pockets to invest in the future.....especially because they perceived no personal benefit in any of these investments.

And this....it seems....in my takeaway anyway.....is where some seriously....and nearly literally... fatal decisions would be made by those policy makers of the time....

Most all of The rest country marched straight into the industrial age.....and at the time....Mississippi was actually positioned extremely well....and could have moved into the industrial era as the economic powerhouse it was....and secured the future in a very different way.....The states strategic location....waterway system.... fertile soils....and access to the ocean could have all been leveraged to moved the state in a very different direction.

But key decisions continued to take place within the states legislature...and would continue to chip away at any solid economic future the state might have had.

For example....education. Well after the civil war....even up through the turn of the century....the state failed to invest in education. The rural nature of the state meant that any children that were offered an education were home schooled for the most part.....and it was perceived there was no benefit in investing in folks that would end up doing menial labor on those cotton plantations.

It's also evident.... that there was an underlying reason for the states resistance to move into the industrial era......The majority of the work force at the time was made up of freed slaves....and business owners of the time had no interest in needing to rely on a paid black work force.....or even allowing them to work in their business...including potential factories.

Another interesting factoid I'd picked up.....is that the states massive decline in wealth also had a bit to do with accounting systems of the time. Up through the civil war....on paper.....in Mississippi slaves were counted as an asset....a piece of property given a set value. Upon losing that asset after the civil war....the wealth of the state began to look much different....nearly immediately.

And mother nature hasn't exactly been on the states side either. Constant flooding.....and destructive storm systems... make doing business in the state....even today.....a proposition that comes with a unique set of risks. In more modern times......Mississippi has had to invest billions into flood protection across the Mississippi Delta.....which is an investment that most other states simply have not had to make....but that said....there are other states in the region that have dealt with and continue to deal with with similar challenges....and have managed to grow into major economies without many of the issues that plague Mississippi.....Florida....for example.

So what keeps getting in Mississippi's way?......well.....one perspective is.....that Mississippi didn't fall from the top of the list.....so much as it just got passed up.....by most everyone else. .... in large part due to those decisions around investment and education early on. By the time they did come around to the notion of industrialization.....mechanization......and investing in infrastructure....the vast majority of the country had such a head start.....it really became a matter of catch up. Compounded by the fact that the state....to this day....lacks a serious talent pool to work from.....a significant portion of the states population remain under educated and povery stricken....while more than a couple of generations now...of Mississippians that have gone off to college...haven't returned home....but instead choosing to secure higher income positions in states with more opportunity.

but in reading of all this.....I've also read that in recent years....the state has begun to see an uptick in folks moving to Mississippi. Many of the factors that have been challenges for the state have resulted in a place where everything from housing......to the cost of services and goods.... all lead to one of the lowest cost of livings in the US....and this fact....has begun to attract folks to the region. A trend that hopefully Mississippi is positioned to capitalize on in a new era.

So complex.....and just one more place back on our list to visit......for real .....next time.

Pulling out of our campsite this morning.....I was struck by that “Red Dirt Road” taking us back out to civilization.....not sure why it hadn't registered as we arrived....maybe I was just tired....but I could suddenly hear Brooks and Dunn singing of that red dirt road....and …suddenly reminded of something I’d seen earlier...A welcome Mississippi sign stating the “Birthplace of Americas Music” I had never heard that expression applied to Mississippi before…but after reading it I realized that I started registering things differently as I read and saw them…even thinking back through Texas. Suddenly I could hear Reba....singing of Oklahoma...Whoevers in New England.....and heartbreak in Tennesee. and LeeAnn Womac singing about Little Rock…Tracy Lawrence pining away on “Paint me a Birmingham“…Charlie Pride asking “Is Anybody Going to San Antone?”…….Marty Robbins singing of that West Texas town of El Paso…Glen Cambell telling the story of a young soldier longing to return to his beloved.... in Galveston.... and yea....Brooks and Dunn telling of their childhood lessons on that “Red Dirt Road”

It was....As if I was not excited enough to explore this brand new old world…I could suddenly picture Elvis Presly and Faith Hill growing up in Mississippi, Reba...Garth and Blake... in Oklahoma, and the army of industry influencing artists that Texas has tossed out into the world for all of us to listen to. In some ways....we had passed through hallowed grounds....and just another element to explore and learn of as we continue this adventure.

But with the potential for some more tricky weather in the forecast.....it was time to continue east. As usual....no idea where we'll call it a nite......

But I wonder what we'll learn there