Why is Perfect Kind of Creepy?

March 2. We are in the panhandle of Florida, near the Alabama border. Tomorrow we will leave Florida after six weeks. I have been so grateful to have missed these last two months of winter weather in Boston, that when I think back on this part of the trip I will always be thinking of where I WASN'T, in addition to where I was.

These last couple of days have been big travel days, leaving Fort Myers on the path north and west towards Mobile. Yesterday we visited the Stephen Foster Folk Art and Cultural Center. The state park was beautiful, one of the nicest campgrounds we have stayed in. The Florida State Park system has just been amazing. And this one was quite an interesting place. Again, very mixed feelings....Stephen Foster wrote some great songs, and they are completely embedded in my brain. "Oh Susannah" is even now running in my head, and as soon as we realized we actually were way down upon the Suwanee River, that song was stuck in my head like an ear worm. But there is also a certain glorification, or at least apparent nostalgia, about the plantation way of life. It all looks so genteel and beautiful, but the undercurrent is there, and it complicates my enjoyment of it.

At the Stephen Foster Folk Art and Cultural Center

After that,  we went along a really beautiful part of Florida that I had no real awareness of, the
beaches of the Florida panhandle. We stayed overnight in a state park that is right on a huge and pristine white sand beach on the gulf. It was spectacularly beautiful.

Both of these nights,  which were the end of long travel days, we made the decision to leave the trailer hooked up to the car, and just sleep in it without really taking it apart and setting up, to save time.  What this means is not going anywhere with the car after arriving at the campground, and exploring by bike. On Sunday, which was the Gulf beach camping day, we just took off on our bikes and picked a direction. Then something pretty amazing happened. We found a kind of paradise by accident.

Not far down the highway (but traveling on a lovely bike path), we found what seemed to be a really
big resort on the beach. We couldn't figure out the name of the resort, and it just kept going on and
on. Eventually we figured out it is a town. It is a "planned community," which means that everything is set up as if you were designing a perfect town....because it was, in fact, designed to be the perfect
town.  All the houses are beautiful. There are many different styles of architecture, so even though all the colors are lovely together and perfectly painted, there isn't a kind of "cookie cutter" feel. There is a town center, where there are many restaurants and shops, all beautiful. There is a little row of perfect permanent food trucks, operating out of perfectly cared-for vintage Airstream trailers.

Individual Airstream

  

Shelves in the perfect store

Airstreams all in a row

The sidewalks have beautiful flower boxes. There are bike racks everywhere (the bikes are all kind of the same, and in several very nice colors), but you can also walk everywhere. There is a grocery
store, where all the food is beautifully displayed, and very high quality. There is the most perfect white sand beach, and the umbrellas were all a beautiful blue. Every business was beautiful. Ice cream store, restaurant, oyster bar, bookstore, cocktail bar high above everything, with a stunning view of the water.....it seemed like you just had to think of it, and there it was (although I did NOT see the public library, and don't know if it was there or not). The post office looked like it should be in Disneyland. I know this sounds ridiculous, but EVERYONE we saw seemed unusually attractive.

Perfect beach, not too crowded

We bought a quite expensive, but lovely, fresh bread, which we needed for dinner, and before we rode back to our campsite,  we had a cold drink and sat in a gazebo and looked out over the fabulous blue-green water. On the ride back I was asking myself....why does this give me the willies? Everything I like about where I choose to live is what seems perfect about this town: I can walk everywhere, and everything I need is close by;  all the housing is built around a town center; the architecture is varied. What's different?

Picket fences on a quiet street

Well, for one thing, everything in this place is the same age. I looked up this place (Seaside, Florida),
on the web, and discovered that it was designed and built by the fellow that owned all the land, and it was built from the 1980's onward. It is still being built. Because it was built to a particular design, and is sold by one realty, it feels like a "company town." And, no big surprise here, it would seem that everyone has money. There was a board in the town center, where all the perfect activities coming up were listed, and the real estate listings indicated houses from smaller cottages to bigger houses, all around 1.5 to 2.9 million dollars. I guess this explains something, right? But I haven't been able to quite get this place out of my mind. Buying a house in Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket would be no different, and in terms of quaint and beautiful, equally breathtaking. But they are REAL. I'm left scratching my head. What if you don't happen to have had a couple hundred years to create a place? And isn't this better than a brand new cookie cutter subdivision of McMansions?

So....I'm thinking big thoughts about urban architecture, vacation homes, and what makes for a good life.

While I'm thinking Big Thoughts, it's on to Mobile for Mardi Gras, and then to New Orleans for after Mardi Gras. Something tells me I'll get a different perspective. Or two.