Florida

We arrived safely at Fort Pickens campground and thoroughly enjoyed our stay, walking the nature trails, the beach, the campground...  Weather was coolish (is that a word?) but warm by Michigan standards for this time of year, and we had a lovely campsite.

One of the major advantages of the Fort Pickens campground, for us, is the proximity to Joe Patti's Seafood store in Pensacola.  AMAZINGLY fresh and varied seafood,  incredible deli with wonderful cheeses, fresh breads, and lunch meats....tho' who wants lunch meats when you have access to this SEAFOOD!?!? (Can you tell we're from mid-Michigan where really fresh seafood is a luxury?) :)

Lovely Ruby Red shrimp - So very good!

The aftermath....

Moved on to St. Joseph Peninsula State Park Campground and got THE best campsite in the whole campground, according to us, and also the ranger who checked us in.  :)

This campground has a lovely beach where you can walk for miles, nature trails and birding opportunities; shelling is ok, but not great, but the sand is the remarkable sugar-colored/textured sand that this area is famous for - I love it here!!!

Although the campground underwent a controlled burn in December, it is still lovely with camp sites that are visually isolated compared to most state parks, and well-maintained facilities.   It's intriguing actually to see how quickly an area that has experienced a burn of this type recovers.  We've experienced no odors from that earlier burn, and given the manner in which they did the burn, there is a remarkable amount of greenery remaining in the area, and particularly surrounding our campsite.  Like a number of other campgrounds, this one has some signs that one can only shake one's head at....and take photographs, of course.

Weather has been good -50's and 60's and dry, calm winds the early days of our stay.  Thursday night a storm moved in which whipped the water into 6-10 foot waves (Neil - you should be here!)  Yesterday was still rainy and foggy all day, so rather than sit in the camper all day, we drove to St. George Island to check out the state park campground there, knowing we could not fit it into our trip this year, but thinking ahead to next year.  That is a lovely campground, very different than the one we are currently occupying, smaller, but with the advantage of fresh seafood within reasonable reach.  We had lunch at a local seafood pub, which was amazing, and thoroughly enjoyable.  Fresh oysters as a starter - SO sweet tasting - followed by fried shrimp and fries that were SO fresh and good!  

Eddie Teach's Raw Bar