SoWal or So What Tee

South Walton is not a city. Not a resort. Not a brand, despite what the bumper stickers suggest. It is a place at the top of Florida where the water turns a color that makes people pull over and just stand there for a minute. Where the sand is so white and fine it squeaks under your feet. Where the road curves along the coast through sixteen towns that each have their own personality and their own people and their own reasons for being the best one. Locals shorten it to SoWal. Visitors learn to do the same about three hours after they arrive. Either way it means the same thing. The place you found. The place you keep coming back to. The place that made everything else feel a little ordinary by comparison. SoWal or so what.

Sonnet 4.6