Personal Narrative Essay: My Florida Experience In Florida

My Florida Experience

The longest I’ve ever lived in one place was the nine years that my family and I lived in

Florida. Before you start playing ‘Welcome to Miami’ in your head just know this was northwest Florida, what most call the panhandle. We lived in a decent sized town named Crestview. Which I never understood because this area of Florida was so flat you could see five miles clear in any direction. Our town had the nickname of Hub City. Since it was centered in the panhandle between the southern boarder of Alabama and the Gulf of Mexico, the town had six major highways dividing the town like an even pie chart. Others thought the town looked like a cars hub cap.

When we’d go south down the southern two spokes of Hub City it no longer looked like

Florida. Instead, it looked as if we were driving through a national park. There were massive pine

The smell of the restaurants faded and the new, refreshing aroma of the sea salt in the air took over. The sun’s warmth on my skin and the constant breeze was a familiar feeling that I loved every single time we came to the beach. I remember the first time we came to the beach. I was only nine years old. The white sand amazed me because it looked like a wavy blanket of snow, but was misleading because it was scorching hot. The water shone green like an emerald, it was content. By this I mean that the waves were weak enough to stand through as they rushed over me. There was no sense of fear of being drug out to sea like a shipwrecked sailor. Knowing all this now I knew exactly how to approach the beach. Wear my sandals as long as I could and lay spread out my towel without hesitation. Then I’d jump in the water to coat myself in a moist protective layer before returning to my now slightly less hot towel. In the water it was a completely different world. While trying to avoid the occasional passing jellyfish, it was an experience of