First time I’d taken time off work since Christmas of 2022 due to all the life changes over the last year and a half or so, it just wasn’t in the cards. Took a week and drove down to Pensacola Beach, which I learned, is basically a sandbar type island off the coast of Pensacola…I’d heard good things about the gulf coast, especially this part of it, but we were blown away by how perfect the beaches were. Sand was like baking flour, and the water just beautiful. We stayed at a resort and basically just hung out on the beach, hit up all the local restaurants, took in some live music, and cruised around exploring a little bit.
One day a storm rolled though, a proper southern storm, which was actually sort of cool to experience right at the beach. Also made me understand why coastal cars are often avoided; the winds pickup wet salt from the ocean and basically coat everything in it….It’s very visible on the windows on the hotel, your sunglasses, etc. I had the Escalade parked in the hotel garage, but near an opening that faced the beach, it came out with a heavy salt film, bad enough that I had to stop and wash the windows to get rid of the haze for the drive home.
In terms of interesting cars at the beach, a lot of old (80’s/90’s) pickups and SUVs, often loaded with surf boards, and then quite a few Jeep Wranglers ranging from the 70’s up to current and everything from beaters to modded show worthy stuff. I feel like an old Jeep would probably be a great vehicle for bombing around a little beach town, maybe even get out on the sand. I thought driving in such loose sand would be a problem, but Beach Patrol was out using stock Chevy Colorados with what appeared to be stock AT tires and were not having any issues at all.
Round trip was just over 900 miles, or 1500kms. Truck was perfect running at 75mph for 7 hours each way, no issues despite age and high miles. Fuel economy for the trip was 15.5L/100kms, not terrible for a 6.0L powered brick loaded to the hilt and the AC blaring. Total fuel cost using premium was around $220 – no carbon tax applied 😊
