What started as a midday drive in Loki, our self converted camper van, to have lunch in a pretty spot about an hour away from the house turned into a 12+ hour drive down to the beach and back on a whim.

We began our day by heading south to Eufaula, Alabama, planning to have a nice lunch in this quaint quintessential Southern town and then turning around to head back home. Easy peasy… Ha!

One of the things I love about the way we travel is that we don’t really make a super “set in stone” plan and, therefore, we never have to be at any one place at a specific time. We can change our plans on the fly. That is what happened this day.

We left the house and headed south towards Eufaula, which took us through Crawford, Alabama. Crawford is a place we drive through all the time and is just around the corner from our home town. On this day, however, we actually stopped long enough to admire and photograph the city murals and a tiny bit of nature (see Scott’s post above for just the murals).

Mural in Crawford

Crawford is a super small dot on the map (not even a street light) that you would not normally notice when driving through at 55mph. However, they have done a lot in the last few years to make it more noticeable. They have a very nice city park now that used to be a flea-market venue, complete with walking path, picnic tables, and kids play equipment. There was a Crawford mural on one of the gas station walls for many years, but recently the town has repainted that one and added a couple of others, too. Well done, Crawford!

Eufaula Drive-thru

Continuing on our drive, we made it to Eufaula and admired the beautiful antebellum homes along the main drag, complete with Spanish Moss hanging in the trees. It is always a sight that seems to transport you back in time. Just outside of town, we drove past a YellaWood mill that we never knew was located there and then we began looking for a place to have lunch. That was when it happened. The plans changed.

Murals in Bonifay

Continuing out of Eufaula going south, we started talking about how the beach (Pensacola) was only 2.5-3 hours from where we were and wouldn’t it be nice if we could run down there and see the Gulf of America again. We try to get down there every chance we get, and this seemed like a perfect plan adjustment.

The updated plan was now to push lunch a little later in the day, perhaps even waiting until we made it to Pensacola, Florida. To get to Pensacola, we drove through Bonifay, Florida. We were surprised, and a little bit giddy, to find more small town murals here. We stopped to take photos of them and then we noticed … the boots.

Oh my goodness, the boots! Apparently, city statues are a thing now. These boots are part of a series called “Boots Around Town” and started in 2023 during the Northwest Florida Championship Rodeo. Bonifay now features eleven painted cowboy boots, with more on the way. They are all different and we are hoping to revisit Bonifay to see if we can find them all. That is the point of them, after all; to bring more tourism to the city.

It was at this point that we started wondering about whether there were more themed city statues out there in other cities. You guessed it, there are! I did some searching and came up with a short list, but I am sure there are many more out there. You can see my list here of Murals by State and our other list of Statues, or City Themed Collections (what do you call them anyway).

Funny thing is, we live in Auburn, Alabama and we have had painted tigers in various places around town for years. We just never gave it a thought before. I did look up this idea on the internet and found many other towns across the nation that have themed statues and murals, too. We now have a new fun thing to seek out when visiting, or passing through towns when we travel.

Discovering Bonifay’s Boots Around Town

This is something we are going to have to do someday when we are back down there. Going around and discovering Bonifay’s Boots Around Town is like a Rodeo-Inspired Scavenger Hunt, something we also mentioned over on Scott’s post as well (see The Murals in Bonifay Florida). They really are unique.

Gulf Coast

We were almost to Pensacola when we both said what we both were thinking: let’s just go ahead and get to Pensacola (we’ve been there a few times before, see The National Naval Aviation Museum Trip Photography) , drive the beach road until we reach Gulf Shores, Alabama, and then head home, since it will already be dark when we get home regardless of the time. Yep, keeping those plans loose is the name of the game.

Since we were committing to this plan now, we had to find something for lunch as soon as possible. McDonald’s to the rescue. We stopped for the quick lunch because we both knew that Scott was going to have to get his Doc’s Seafood fix for dinner when we got to Orange Beach. That dinner is always huge and he needed to be hungry again by then.

The majority of schools were back in session on this day, so we had a fantastic walk on the beach without the crowds. Even though this day was a Saturday, all the vacationers and tourists were gone from the area which greatly improved traffic and personal space everywhere.

Dinner on the ICW

We made it to Doc’s and to Culver’s to pick up our dinner in perfect time to sit in Loki on the intercoastal waterway and relax. Unfortunately, both of our meals were the worst that we have ever had from either place, so I won’t elaborate on that. The view was wonderful, though and made us more excited about continuing to convert Loki to a full on campervan and taking him so many more places.

The trip concluded at home around midnight, but we did make one last stop for gas and super clean restrooms at the latest phenomenom to grace the interstates in this counrty, Buc-ee’s.

How do you travel? Do you make plans that are set with reservations and time tables, or do you fly by the seat of your pants and go where the wind blows you? Neither way is wrong or right, just different. ~Happy Travels~