Southern migration

In winter we flow southward, no different than the quartz dust scraped from Appalachian crags and ushered downstream, destined for the Panhandle’s white beaches.

Tires chew Alabama interstate. No impediments emerge, just low-lying fog clamped to myriad river valleys. Starkly the Alabama River bends beneath highway pylons, ancient in its turns. We circle Birmingham and glance at Montgomery and its handful of towers, the state capitol invisible below them.

South of the capital roadside attractions break up the view – the Korean auto plant, the soda bottling plant, the pecan store and the slab of bloodstained asphalt honoring a long-dead deer. We confront brainlessness across scores of motorists, all committed to oblivion. Clear, open road must be earned, even five minutes across 200 miles.

 Here the coastal plain crawls in, we find sanctuary in the unknown. We find names demanding stories – Burnt Corn Creek cannot come from casual origins. Alabama town names draw from the Southern mundane (lots of ‘villes) and local eccentricities (Pine Apple, Fort Deposit, Pintala).

 In the pines, the sun beats brightly. This quiet country only faces interruption from old tornado paths or a hawk’s predatory dive. The landscape rolls off. Beyond these majestic pine stands do the forest end abruptly in an ocean of stumps? The log trucks fill their flatbeds somewhere. The highest branches hiding the paper mills, not their sporadic stenches.

Florida rings with oddity, always two steps off from everywhere else. Does Mystic Springs Road still end at water bubbling from underground? We will never know, as the gulf’s call grows too great. On this rundown corridor, towns need a break, a boost or bulldozer. They only get hopping when lotteries hit record levels and reel in ticket buyers from states not in the pool. We join the traffic in Cantonment, Ensley if lucky spots us a few miles.

The Gulf waters lie close enough to tease the nostrils with salty air. Hundreds of miles have clicked off, traversing a half-dozen ecosystems, until the pine stands run into palm trees. But the beach must wait. Ten miles take a half-hour as frustration mounts under unsynchronized traffic lights. You are close, but only the palms and aloe promise tropical weather.

The Panhandle pulls people from across the continent, yet it cannot shake its nickname, the Redneck Riviera – a slur at best. The Spanish history and Creole culture flavor Florida’s west edge. Here the barrier islands balance vacation development with preserved beaches. Soon winter will claw us back, as is its seasonal right. The thermometer’s plunge marks progress on that highway. For a brief window, we’ll take Pensacola salutations of “stay warm” on nights more balmy than an Ohio autumn. It’s a small price in a welcoming place that rarely knows single-digit nights.