Gulf Seashore—Florida Panhandle

We are spending 10 days along the Gulf of Mexico Florida Panhandle. We have stayed in 3 different State Parks, and are very impressed with the camping and picnic facilities in these parks. All are handicap accessible. All have well-marked trails through the wilderness areas, many with raised boardwalks to walk across the marshy areas. All have gorgeous white sandy beaches nearby, some within walking or biking distance. In two of them, we were located right on the lagoons where we could watch boats go in and out from our picnic table or chairs, or water birds stalk their prey right in front of us. Beautiful sunsets.

At this last one, we’re close to the National Gulf Seashore, with seven miles of nothing but quartz sand beaches and sand dunes. It’s been somewhat overcast or windy part of the time, but on one of the gorgeous sunny days last weekend, many families were enjoying the beach, as were many fishermen with their poles lodged in the sand while they lounged nearby. We didn’t actually see anyone catching anything, but they say that there is good fishing in both the lagoons and ocean. We have certainly enjoyed wonderful fresh seafood – but we’ve had to purchase it at a seafood market! Lots of shrimp, grouper, mahi mahi, tilapia, for example. In another part of Florida, there were lots of stone crab claws, which were not quite as good as crabs we get in California, but these crabs have a different life cycle. When the claws are harvested, the crabs are not killed. They just grow more claws.

(John enjoyed getting his kite up in the air on the beach -- too bad I can't get the kite and John in the same picture!

Lots of sand dunes in this part of Florida. In one area, there were sand dunes and lakes in the same area – one of only two places in the world where they are found together. (South Africa is the other place.) We’ve loved walking on the trails and listening to the birds. I often wonder what it would be like to live in a world where there are no birds. I’m currently typing at our picnic table – a bird about 8 feet away has been entertaining me with its warble song for quite awhile. We’re not that good at identifying birds yet, but we’re certainly getting more interested in spotting them and listening to their sounds. We also have spotted a couple eagles in their branch nests. I also love listening to the wind in the pine trees. The wooded areas have tall slash pine trees, medium sized oaks, and small saw palmetto palms along with various shrubs. Some of the ponds look like a floating green garden. The duckweed that floats on top is the smallest flowering plant in the world. Other areas have lily pads. All have a brackish look to the water.

All along these wonderful beach areas, there are also communities that have built up -- even a few newly planned communities, as well, where everything is in walking or biking distance. There are also many resort areas with huge high rise hotels and condos. (We’re so glad the state or federal governments have protected some of the natural wildlife areas so that it's not all built up.) We went into one high rise that had an open house, just for the fun of it. The 2 and 3-bedroom condos we looked at all had full ocean views and balconies, private elevators, 3 swimming pools, 2 tennis courts, 2 exercise rooms, theater/video viewing rooms, entertainment areas. If we wanted to move to Florida, we could sell our house in Santa Rosa and live pretty well here. But then there’s the hot and sticky summer months, and we would be much too far from family, whether California or Michigan! So it’s not for us.

We’re currently at the Big Lagoon State Park, which is near Pensacola. We didn’t have “Rosie” (our GPS voice) turned on getting here, partly because we didn’t have an actual address of the State Park, and partly because it looked easy enough to find on the map. Wrong! We missed one of the turns and ended up in a line of cars waiting to get through security at going a Naval Military Base. The security guard gave us a funny look seeing our pick up and trailer, since we obviously were not in the right area. He told us how to turn around, but it was a bit tricky for John maneuvering through their maze of lanes to get us back on the right road. We went back later, without trailer, to watch a public Blue Angels practice session. This is the home base of the Blue Angels, we’ve learned. Then went to the Naval Air Museum.

Also along the way getting here, John hit a curb with one of the back support jacks on the trailer. We went to a Camping World store about 45 minutes from here to get a new jack, and John has spent a good part of the morning trying to install a new jack. I’m glad he’s so good at that kind of stuff – and keeping us safe on this long road trip, since he’s doing all the driving with trailer! While we were at Camping World, we looked at new trailers, motor homes, small camping vehicles. We are more pleased than ever with what we have in our 23’ travel trailer. It has everything we need!