St Andrews State Park - Panama City, Florida

Wow, St Andrews State Park was a pleasant surprise!  Liked it so much here I decided to stay longer and cancelled moving back down to Grayton Beach.  Started with this nice sunny corner lot:  

But then had to move to this lot closer to the water in order to stay here for additional time.  Not a great shot of the new lot (which was much smaller) but check out our furry friend who came to visit once Suze had returned (finger tip):

This guy welcomed me as I pulled into the park on day 1:

Daily while out riding my bike I would run into these 2 does and their fawns. 

If you looked around real closely you'd usually see 1 or 2 bucks keeping a close eye on them:

There were a couple of areas where numerous birds would all hang out together in the park:

This park offerred everything we wanted.  Bays, inlets and ocean beaches, boat ramps, rental boats, biking and hiking trails, fishing peirs and more.  Highly reccomend staying here!  The bay across from the campsite was beautiful:

and these 3 ducks would cruise the shoreline every day:

The park beach was beautiful with it's white powder sand and clear tourqoise water:

When the wind kicked up the waters here would be full of surfers and kite surfing wake boarders:

Even when the double red flags were out due to dangerous water conditions, the waters were full of these guys (look closely at all the specs in the water):

Here I am doing my favorite thing while here alone . . . giving myself a time out in my beach chair to admire the 4 ringers I just threw . . .

Some of the beaches here had huge sand walls carved into them - tons of sea shells burried in these walls too:

The sunsets here were beautiful too:

While I was here, the St Andrews section of Panama City hosted a Mardi Gras parade.  I gave away half of my beads to kids in front of me but I still left with about 10 lbs of bling around my neck.  Captain Jack Sparrow himself was leading this particular crew:

Later in week there was another Mardi Gras parade at Pier Park.  Weather was a little cooler but Pier Park was packed with people . . . all to get a neckful of plastic beads:

For those of you who haven't seen one of these parades, if you look closely at the float you'll see all the beads hanging on the sides which they will completely unload in about 1/2 mile of parade route:

Even the 4 legged creatures were in party mode:

A special thanks to Larry and Sandee who are "The Best" campground host here at St Andrews SP - thanks for your help - we look forward to seeing you both either in Wisconsin or New Hampshire in the future!

We're off to Big Lagoon State Park in Pensacola, FL . . . more to come  . . .