Port St Joe State Park

A map to give you an idea of where this park is along the pan handle (out on the peninsula, not the highlighted area):

We arrived at the park late at night.  Suze had called ahead to get the code for the gate.  Try finding a campsite in the pitch black when you've never been to a campground before and your towing a 35' trailer behind you.  Lesson learned is to have the map of the park before you arrive at night.

The beaches here are beautiful too (even when the red flags are flying):

Not too many people on the beaches as you can see.  The park is on a 10-12 mile long peninsula.  Less than 100 yards between the bay and the gulf in some places.  We have a nice campsite with the Gulf out the front:

And a nice view of the wetlands that lead to the bay out the back:

There are some bike trails and more hiking trails here.  Almost every time we were out, we'd run into wildlife (mostly Bambie):

This picture is a little fuzzy but look at our welcome to this nature trail . . .

The park doesn't get very good TV (air) or Cell reception so we went on the hunt Sunday and found a great sports bar called Toucan's on Mexico City Beach about 30 miles away to watch yet another Patriots win against the Colts this time!  8-2!

Another day we drove to Apalachicola and St George State Park about an hour away.  The park was pretty much a barrier island.  Beaches were nice but not much else to offer in the area - wouldn't make the trip out of our way to camp here but nice if you're in the area.

One day while in Port St Joe shopping, we went into a sports store there.  They had an inflatable kayak (2 up) there that had our names all over it.  After doing some research on the web, we decided to buy it:

Check out the clear bottom panels for underwater viewing.  Later that afternoon we were out in the bay kayaking.  We witnessed hundreds of fish (10-12 inches long) jumping out of the water all around us for a good 20 mins.  Unfortunately the portable camera I had with us took a dive as I was trying to capture the moment.  We sat there anyway waiting for one to jump into the kayak - no fish for dinner tonight.  We also saw lots of other fish, tiny crabs, horseshoe crabs, scallops, oysters, puffer fish, and many different birds diving for food.

Many days we'd go walking the beach or down by the marina in the bay and we'd see dolphins herding up schools of fish for dinner:

Thanksgiving we went for a walk on the beach.  We witnessed a rare single clawed writing crab.  Only a few people have been able to sneak up on one and see it write in the sand:

We continued to watch in amazement and thought we'd found our 1st Republican crab:

But as we continued to watch this guy, we realized he was trying to tell us to get to Toucan's again to watch the Patriots beat up on the Lions!

The hiking here was different in that most of the trails were all soft sand.  Made for slow and difficult hikes:

Trail heads from the beaches up and over the large dunes:

And almost every hike we spotted one of these guys:

Check out the bay in the background on this one:

And here's a doe with fawn:

The day after Thanksgiving, the creatures started decorating the trees out back for the holidays:

Another evening we caught a beautiful moon rising . . .

And what would another blog posting be without at least 1 sunset out our front yard:

So tomorrow (Monday) we're off early and back to Panama City to have follow-up work done on our tin can and then back to Grayton Beach State Park for a few days before moving down the road to TopSail State Park.

Grayton Beach, Florida (continued)

While staying at Grayton Beach, we took a ride over to Pensacola on Veteran’s Day to catch the Blue Angels homecoming show.  This guys was loud:

Check out the guys in the cockpit on this one:

And many more performed before the Blue Angels:

The Blue angels were on for 1.5 hrs . . . awesome! Check these guys out side by side, one upside down:

These guys are 18” at most away from each other:

Couple more cool shots:

Several other days we hit the off road bike trails – well marked and maintained – challenging too!

I know we’ve mentioned the sunsets before but every night it’s another beautiful one:

The sunset looking over the lake behind our camp toward the beach dunes:

Those specs in the water are ducks checking out the sunset too:



Back to the beach with sailboats doing sail-bys:

Look close and you can see hundreds of fish in the wave:

Did I mention the sunsets?

We found a great little Irish bar just down the street.  Bar’s owner is a huge Steelers fan . . . he sat next to us at the bar for a while we watched the Pats whoop up on the Steelers . . . Great food, drinks and game . . . 7-2!

Another day we hit the beach after some nasty storms the night before . . . hard to believe this is the same beach we’ve been at the last 2 weeks:

So we hiked the dunes trail instead:

some of it was a wash out from all thee rain the night before . . . we'll be back!

We did hit the links 1 day so far.  Both shot bogey golf so we're off to a good start!  We've packed up from Grayton Beach and are now at Port Saint Joe State Park (still on the panhandle).  Made a pit stop at RV Connections to have the tin can serviced.  If you ever need it, great place, great people, Cliff in Service and all the guys in Parts - very helpful, great attitudes!

At Port Saint Joe State Park we have no cell or wireless service.  Have to drive a ways to get it.  We have a great site with the bay in our back yard and the ocean in the front yard.  Nothing to do around here except explore, hike, bike & relax - should be good!

Grayton Beach State Park Florida

We headed out of Pigeon Forge for the Florida  panhandle driving through TN, GA and AL before stopping and spending our 1st night at a WalMart Superstore parking lot just south of Montgomery Alabama.  Several other RVs and trucks camped out there - wasn't too bad (for free)!  The next morning we headed out early and made Grayton Beach State Park in Florida by noon.  The beach here is beautiful:

and empty this time of year. . .

The flags are warning of hazardous waters and dangerous marine life:

But all we found were a few washed up jelly fish:

and herons on the hunt:

We got a great site with the lake in our back yard and the beach a short walk away:

and a tree gecko guarding our lot:

Weather was a little cool at first (low 60s) but found it's way to the upper 70s this week.  One afternoon we caught a great sunset over the dunes near our campsite:

Another day we drove to Panama City to check out an area that was being developed a couple years ago when we were last here - Pier Park.  Many restaurants and shops - it really turned out nice:

A lot of the city has been rebuilt along the waterfront since we were last here after a hurricane - looking good.  We had to stop at our favorite baked oyster hole, Dusty's to have a dozen Dusty Baked & Rockefeller oysters - Awesome!  This place has come a long ways on the outside since we 1st visited 8-10 years ago but inside, same decor and same good food & drinks!

One night we went back to Pier Park to catch a free Clint Black concert outdoors - not bad for "free" country . . .

Some beautiful sunsets even when there's not a cloud in the sky:



even the sandpiper was checking it out . . .

Even though it's beach weather during the day, when the sun goes down it's campfire weather!  Still burning NH wood - thanks Paul!

We've been doing a lot of walking the beach and biking trails every day (great biking trails on and off road here).  You really can get to everything you need on bike here.  But most importantly, when in Rome . . .

more to come for Grayton Beach before we depart next Thursday . . .