Arriving Home to Spring - Fairfax VA (April 23, 2014)

When we were in South Carolina, the azaleas were in full bloom.  When we were in North Carolina, the trees were fully leafed out.  As we traveled north on I-95 yesterday, the leaves on the trees got smaller and lighter green.  We started seeing flowering redbud and dogwood trees.  We arrived home to find our yard and garden on the cusp of Spring.  We left a monochromatic yard with white snow on the ground and bare grey trees.  We returned to a colorful yard with bright green grass, tulips, dogwood blossoms and a few azaleas blooms.  We even had swiss chard and lettuce waiting for us in the cold frame.  Spring is a wonderful time to come home!

Following the trend for these kinds of things - here is our trip "By the Numbers":

3,486  - miles traveled
     49  - nights on the road
     32  - blog entries
     21  - campgrounds (9 state, 5 private, 4 municipal, 2 national, 1 relative)
       9 - States visited
       9 - kayak trips
       3 - major thunderstorms that lasted more than 24 hours and involved major flooding.

Thank you for reading our blog, and for sending us comments and emails about it.  We have enjoyed writing it and sharing our adventures.  Our next trip will be sometime this summer.

An Easter Treat – Huntington Beach State Park SC (April 20-22, 2014)

The Place

As we discussed our retirement over the past few years, we would say that we wouldn’t travel on Fridays and Sundays or on the high travel days of holiday weekends.  Of course, we would say this when we were tied up in traffic somewhere.  So, when we left Little Talbot Island FL on the Saturday before Easter, we thought that all the holiday travelers would be off the road on Saturday.  We were wrong.   I-95 was heavy but at speed through Georgia, and slowed down to a crawl in South Carolina.  After creeping through 30 miles in 2 hours, we got off the road for the night.  Surely, we said, there is some beach in South Carolina where we could wait out the traffic and celebrate Easter on the beach.  We were lucky to find it in this very special Huntington Beach State Park.

Huntington Beach State Park was the estate of billionaires that became a state park.  It has a very nice campground, a ruined estate house, a gorgeous beach, a salt marsh, a fresh marsh, loads of birds, and a handful of alligators.  We had a fabulous time and will definitely return here on another trip.

The Adventure

Birds, birds, birds.  We heard the Painted Buntings were often found at the park.  Then we saw two at a feeder at the Nature Center.  Yes, two.  Sadly, the photos were taken far away, so this one is barely worth posting here.  The bird feeder has a cage around it to discourage squirrels.  In addition, we saw ibis, egrets, herons, anhinga, terns, eagles, osprey, and pelicans. 

We went on a kayak eco-tour with Blackwater RiverOutdoors.  There were about 20 of us, playing bumper kayaks through the salt marsh.  Eventually everyone got sorted out, and we had a fun kayak through the marsh.  We saw 2 Bald Eagles and countless other birds.

The best part of Huntington Beach?  Dogs are allowed on the beach, much to Tiki’s delight!

We left on Tuesday morning and headed toward home.  Traffic is almost non-existent.  We should be home after lunch on Wednesday.

The “Real Florida”, Little Talbot Island State Park, Jacksonville FL (April 17 – 19, 2014)

The Place

Our Campsite

The View From Our Campsite

When the French Huguenots first explored these barrier islands on the Atlantic coast of Florida in 1562 they must have found pounding surf, wide sand beaches and dunes, a tropical forest and salt marsh.  It is still here today on this undeveloped island.  In the distance of 1.5 miles across the island you have all that, 4 distinct ecosystems.  

 The park has two sections divided by Route A1A, one section is along the beach and dunes, and the other contains the campground and salt marsh.  The campground is in a tropical forest that rivals the sets of Jurassic Park.  It has huge, old live oak trees dripping Spanish moss and populated with ferns growing along their branches, palm trees, pine trees, palmetto plants, undergrowth, and vines.  The Florida State Parks bill themselves as “The Real Florida” and Little Talbot Island State Park is just that.

 The Adventure

The Bluffs on Big Talbot Island

A storm started shortly after we arrived, and continued through the next day.  We spent the morning on the beach which was wild with waves, and sea foam.  As the storm increased, we unplugged the motor home and hit the road to explore the other barrier islands that compose this state park, Big Talbot Island and Amelia Island.   

At The Bluffs on Big Talbot Island we saw an unusual forest with a lower story and top story, but nothing in the middle.  Amelia Island has a tiny state park at one end.  The rest of the island is very swanky with a big resort and fancy houses and stores.   At the other end of Amelia Island is Fernandina Beach, where we had lunch overlooking a stormy seascape.

This is our last Florida stop on our trip.  On Saturday we will turn left, head north and start our journey home.

Pelicans at St. Andrews State Park, Panama City Beach FL (April 13-16, 2014)

The Place

Our Campsite

St. Andrews State Park is growing on us.  When we arrived, we passed the tourist detritus of the town of Panama City Beach (souvenir mega-stores, seafood eateries, hotels) right up to the gates of the park.  It was a Sunday afternoon and the park was crowded with day visitors.  Our campsite overlooks the Grand Lagoon (what they call the waterway between the mainland and the barrier island here), and on the other side of the Grand Lagoon are condos and marinas!  Civilization!  Ach!

Kayaking in Front of Our Campsite

Then we realized, the view out our windows is very pretty.  And for only the second time on our trip, we have a water view out of our windows.  The beaches here (on the other side of the park from the camping) are really gorgeous. The marshland and Gator Lake (lots of signs saying Don’t Feed the Alligators, but no gator sightings) in the center of the park are really beautiful.  And the place is loaded with egrets, herons, pelicans, and other birds.  So now we see why people stay up until midnight 11 months before their vacation to reserve a campsite here.

The Adventure

We Made It to the End of The Island

Floating Bait Shop!

If you have a waterfront campsite, you can throw your kayak into the Grand Lagoon from off of your bit of shore.  We are across the street from those sites, so we carted the kayaks to the boat launch and the beautiful sand launch spot there.  Our first destination was to paddle around the end of the island into the Gulf.  It was windy and tide was coming in against us, but we made it around the end … and then turned around and floated back without hardly paddling at all.

On the way back we were able to watch the pelicans feed.  Along part of the shoreline of the campground is a breakwater, loaded with pelicans.  They just let us glide past and take their pictures.  We found them in winter and summer plumage and there were some immature birds without the distinctive head and neck markings.  Given the number the pelicans that we've seen on this trip and particularly here, it is hard to believe that this species was almost wiped out in the 1960s.

As I am writing this, we are in the middle of a rain storm, and the pelicans are putting on a show over the Lagoon outside my windows.  So, St. Andrews State Park has grown on us.

We got lots of great pelican pictures. Here are just a few!