Fort Pickens Campground, Florida

We're back at Fort Pickens for a week.  This is one we keep coming back to, both because of the beauty and because of the availability of such great, fresh seafood that we can prepare ourselves in the Airstream.  I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

No dogs permitted on beach, so Murphy can only look from a distance

But he can walk the nature trails with us, and there are many here

Mussels and fresh sourdough rosemary bread for dinner

The little freshwater ponds that dot the dunes are surprising, and critical for their role in providing fresh water for animals living in this area

Sesame seared tuna, pickled ginger and wasabi, a side of thinly sliced cukes.

Next week we move on to Gulf State Park in Alabama.

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

2015: On the Road Again...

We got a real Michigan Winter sendoff yesterday as we began our trip south to spend the rest of January and all of February as well as a tiny bit of March in Florida and Alabama along the Gulf Coast.

The temperature has dropped significantly and we had the usual wintery mix of snow, sleet, and more snow, making for pretty scenery but hazardous roads.  Fortunately, now that we're in Kentucky, the roads are dry, though temps are still below 30 degrees Farenheit.

Remarkably, despite the single-digit temperatures, our little Silver Spirit remained cozy and warm while we were packing up, primarily using only the heat from a 30-year old little space heater, with an occasional supportive blast from the Airstream furnace.   These are remarkably well-insulated campers!

Because of the late start yesterday, we were unable to reach our usual first night destination of a KOA campground in Louisville, KY, instead having to bunk down for the night at a Red Roof Inn, where he had the chance to watch the Ohio Buckeyes beat the Oregon Ducks.  Why in a motel rather than our own sweet little home that we're towing behind, you ask? Without a place to plug into electricity, the camper is far too cold to spend time in when the temps are in the single digits as they were.  It stayed cozy while we were packing at home because we were plugged into an outlet in the garage, permitting the space heater to do its thing.

About a day and a half of driving still ahead of us before we reach our first destination campground, Fort Pickens National Park near Pensacola, FL.

And Now, For the Rest of the Story.....

This post is going to cover a LOT of ground; 32-days-worth of travel in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon, as well as our return trip to Michigan.  Much of that time I failed to post due to lack of adequate WiFi signal, but I also failed to post because I was busy savoring family time and a great adventure and didn't want to steal a minute of that time to do something so mundane (tho' enjoyable) as posting about the trip.  NOW, however, we have returned home from this extended (nearly 2 month) trip, and I'm feeling a bit melancholy that it is all over, so am hoping that this review of how we spent these last 4+ weeks will perk me up with the memories of a truly exceptional trip.

We arrived in Vancouver Sept. 18 and spent a couple of days visiting with John, Mark, Claire, and Clark. One cool and overcast day, we watched Mark introduce brother John to cold-water-diving, and enjoyed once again the beautiful, rugged coast of Vancouver.

Claire had the good sense to dress for the weather while waiting for Mark and John to suit up, but Clark, taking after his "Dad", spent the time retrieving huge sticks from the cold water.

Needless to say, while in Vancouver we savored some wonderful meals and family time, and enjoyed  watching Murphy (the old man) and Clark (the young pup) get acquainted.

Left to right: Liga, Murphy, Clark :)

We spent a few rainy days camping and fishing in Squamish with both Mark and John,
then the three of us (John, son John, and I) took a ferry to Vancouver Island, where we spent  a few days fishing by ourselves until Mark was able to catch up with us for some more joint camping/fishing time. It was an amazing gift that both sons were able to share this large amount of time traveling with us, since vacation time is so precious.

Just waiting to go to work

John's fly-fishing pack - including bear spray

Drying fishing boots at the campground - note the heavy layers of moss on the trees

The Provincial campgrounds (think State campgrounds in the US) where we spent most of our time offered well maintained, primitive campsites (no water or electric hookups, but water available at a central pump), and we were surprised to find how easily we could spend days on end "off-grid" by careful use of water and running the generator briefly in the morning and evening.





















John and Mark tied fishing flies during much of their "down-time", by the side of the river, by outdoor lamp-light, by campfire-light.

I managed to tame my usual dependence on internet access by instead learning and practicing fly fishing, taught by our own expert guide and instructor, son John. :)

Although I took a lot of photos of the areas we were in, not many include photos of actual fishing, since I'm still at the point where I'm not all that sure-footed wading in rock-bottomed rivers, no matter how shallow, and dared not risk my good camera or my phone camera while engaging in this activity.  We hit Vancouver Island campgrounds at the start of the salmon run, so rivers were often thick with salmon - an unusual sight.  Unfortunately, during this phase of their lives, they are not feeding, but instead using all their energy to fight their way upstream to spawn.  We* still managed to catch quite a few, but observed a catch-and-release policy with all of them, since at this late stage of their lives they are not in the best condition for eating.  (*I use the term "we" rather loosely here: the guys each caught their fair share...I caught one).   Despite my novice status, I am now hooked on the sport.

 

Yes, the water really was this clear, and this amazingly beautiful color!

Preparing rods for fishing on a drizzly day

John traversing the "bridge" to fish the other side

So much to learn, such fun standing outside in these beautiful surroundings interacting with wily fish, and - if fishing in British Columbia - bears.  Yup! Beautiful black bears strolling the other side of the river, also fishing, filling themselves up for their long winter nap.   We were told by rangers at the parks that although the bears were plentiful, so were the fish, and that the bears "almost always" stay on the other side of the river.  Hmmmm, do they really?  Let's see: 1) the rivers where we fished them were not that wide, and bears can move really fast; 2) the rivers we fished were not very deep, and bears are good swimmers; 3) EVERYONE who walks in the woods in BC (hikers, fishermen, moms with kids and strollers) seems to carry bear spray; 4) Mark was awakened in his tent very early one morning by a bear snuffling around his tent and walking around our campsite - fortunately it moved on, so Mark must not have smelled like food.

Still, after the initial shock wore off, of looking up while fishing to seeing a bear staring at me from about 40 feet away, other sightings were amazing, but not as frightening, because 1) we each religiously carried our bear spray; 2) there was plenty of easily available food in the river as they were fattening up for winter, so we hoped they weren't very motivated to take on several bear-spray-toting humans all at once, 3) it is an amazing sight for those of us not used to seeing them so casually ambling around in nature, 4) we treated them with lots of respect and as much distance as possible once we saw them.

When Mark had to get back to work, we left Vancouver Island, again via Ferry, with the intent of doing more fishing in Washington State for the next few days before son John had to leave for New Zealand.  Our plan changed when he was able to arrange to get together with his friend Neil Barker in Pacific City, Oregon.  Within a day's drive we were once again in a totally different environment, right on the ocean.  Neil took John surfing and took us clamming and crabbing, a new experience for us. Eating the fresh clam stew and super-sweet crab the next day was incredible!  While son John and his friends Neil and Heidi enjoyed their visiting the next few days, husband John and I took drives along the coast, and enjoyed the remarkable beauty of this area, both in the sun and in the dense coast fog. We also had the thrill of seeing our first whales in close to shore, blowing and breaching.

Beach across from our campground

Neil setting the crab traps while Abby supervises

Digging for clams 

 

Octopus Tree

 The last few days together as a family in Vancouver, great food, good times:

On the trip home we stopped off in Olympia, Washington so I could catch up with my HS best friend, Lee Miller.  What a rewarding experience it is to reconnect with friends from our youth to discover that despite the different roads our lives have taken, the love and kinship of spirit is still alive in these life-long friendships!  

We did not make as many (or as lengthy) stops as we did on the way out to the west coast; still, since we took a different route coming home than going out, we saw different scenery and  bits of Autumn color, but little really intense leaf color until we arrived back in Michigan.

 

HOME!!!

All told - the trip of a lifetime!  :)