Harry Meets Innerarity

I fell in love with Innerarity the first time I saw it, made it my home. I had been on assignment, working my way throughout the southeast U.S.A. on a fact-finding trip for the Modern-Day Adventurer’s Guide. I’d come to Innerarity by way of Pensacola, where I spent all my time trying to convince the mayor that his city was missing out on a huge financial opportunity by not producing a product comparable to Coca-Cola.

“Pensa-Cola,” I’d told him, “as refreshing as the coast itself.” I still say it was a good idea. To which the mayor, jowls jostling, scoffed, cackled, and dismissed the idea as if it were absolutely ridiculous.

I would have missed Innerarity entirely if I hadn’t been canvassing every road that exited the main road I’d been traveling on, searching for unique and interesting spots. Looking at my map that day I just shook my head. The town wasn’t represented at all—no dot or blip or marking of any sort divulged the proof of its existence. There was only a naked horn of land that jutted out into the Perdido Sound. If I hadn’t been exploring quite so diligently, I would never have known it existed.

I remember, upon finding it, how my heart thumped with the excitement of discovery. I looked south along the town’s only thoroughfare, aptly named Main Street, seeing a row of aged but well-kept buildings on the left and a large park on the right, across Main. I could see the blue water of the sound ahead of me, the land on the other side of it pocked with condos that rose from the green foliage like teeth. Those condos were in Orange Beach, just across the bay which represented the state line between Florida and Alabama.

I walked down the row of buildings and, in the window of one of the businesses noticed a Room-for-Rent sign. With all my worldly belongings at my feet in a duffel bag (excluding the ’79 Bronco that was in long-term parking in Jacksonville, Florida), and with no home to hang my hat in, I stared at that sign for a long moment before, without clearly understanding why, I opened the door and walked inside. Within an hour I was a paying resident of the town of Innerarity, Florida, and for the next few weeks I spent my time getting to know the locals and trying to fit in with them.