December 29  - Moving south

We left off in our last entry in Southern Georgia at Crooked River State Park near St Marys which is right across the St Marys River from Florida. It was a lovely state park with a very nice campground and lots of trails. We saw our first gopher tortoises and armadillos

at the park. The village itself was very charming river town and we went to the Cumberland Island National Seashore Museum there and decided we wanted to visit the island but our planning was poor and the ferry to the island doesn’t run on Tuesday or Wednesday during the winter so we went on the Thursday 9am ferry, traveled to the island, had 15 minutes there and had to get back on the boat to return to leave our campsite on time.

It seems like such a beautiful place with lots of history and we want to come again and spend the whole day sometime. Mark searched our entire trip to find a place that was close to a Jimmy Buffett concert and St. Mary’s was it. It was an easy drive to Jacksonville Florida to see him and the Coral Reefers Band in their “Life on the Flip Side” tour.

We enjoyed the concert and the ambiance of all the fans sining with Jimmy but the acoustics in the arena were terrible.

On the 9th we moved on to Florida. We camped at Little Talbot Island State Park east of Jacksonville. We were very disappointed with this park - since the fall of 2020 the campground floods whenever there are high tides and as a result they are only using only 19 of 41campsites and the place is getting rather overgrown and mosquito infested - so we left after only 2 nights. We did go to Fernandina Beach which is an old historic town and we took a walking tour and saw many of the old homes and buildings. We also saw the Amelia Island Lighthouse, and

went to Fort Clinch State Park. The fort was in use from 1847 - 1945. It never saw much action in any war, so it is in very good condition and between 1937 and 1942 the Civilian Conservation Corps repaired the fort. It was very impressive.

We also walked the beach there.

We moved south stopping at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park which had lovely formal gardens and big live oaks.

We also visited their beach which has unusual coquina rock formations. 

Since we left Little Talbot early we were able to meet up with Mark’s Cousin near Titusville. Michael and his wife Lea have a spot in a RV resort and we were able to get a spot there with them. It was so nice to visit them and for Mark and Michael to catch up. We visited Ponce de Leon Lighthouse with them.

It is the second highest lighthouse in the U.S. and has a very nice museum with it.

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge is very close and we visited it 4 days in a row taking the motor nature  road across the reserve. We saw lots of birds including roseate spoonbills and painted buntings to name a few.

Roseate Spoonbill

Painted Bunting

Belted Kingfisher

Wood Stork

We also went to Canaveral National Seashore and walked the beach there.

On the 16th of December, we moved south once more. Our next campground was at Sebastian Inlet State Park. This is a very popular park for fishing and surfing. We walked out on the fishing jetty and watched people surf and fish. Mark enjoying kayaking 2 mornings in the calmer waters of a lagoon on the intercoastal waterway side of the park.

He was thrilled to have a dolphin swim nearby and then under the kayak. I found a nearby little beach and enjoyed the sun. The campground was very buggy with biting gnats. Folks told us that it is because the weather is unusually wet and warm that the gnats are out in force, 

While here we visited the McKee Botanical Garden in Vero Beach. It was a lovely garden - lush and jungle like. It was all decorated for Christmas and also dinosaur sculptures scattered all over.

We also visited the Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge which was the first national wildlife refuge in the U.S. It was established in 1903 to protect the nesting birds on Pelican Island. We took a nature walk to called the Centennial Trail which had a board walk listing all the national wildlife refuges in the U.S. and when they were established. It was pretty impressive. 

We moved on after 2 nights. We stopped in Ft Pierce at the Heathcote Botanical Garden. Their most celebrated display was of over 100 tropical bonsai - very nice. 

Our next 2 nights were spent at Jonathon Dickinson State Park near Jupiter. Mark kayaked in the Loxahatchee River - a national scenic river and very undisturbed. Parts of it have mangroves along the banks and as you go inland and there is less salt water, there are a lot of bald cypress. The next day we took a guided pontoon boat tour along the river to the Trapper Nelson Interpretive Site where a local legend lived in the middle of nowhere for 38 years.

It was a very interesting tour. We also walked up to the Hone Mountain Observation Tower. At 86 ft above sea level, it is the highest point in south Florida. We took a short loop trail at the Nathaniel P Reed Home Sound National Wildlife Refuge, walked the beach in Jupiter and saw the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse.

On Monday, we had a long travel day with lots of traffic to Key West. We arrived at Boyd’s Key West  Campground at 4:30 pm.  We have a very nice campsite and can see the ocean from our site. Tuesday, it rained all day.

We drove around Key West a little. 

On Wednesday, the 22nd, we were scheduled to take a ferry to Dry Tortugas National Park which is located on an island 70miles west of Key West. The boat ride started out with just a little chop but got progressively worse as the trip went on.

With many passengers seasick the captain announced we should all take our seats its going to get rough … after a really big crash with water streaming over the boat the captain turned around and told us they had steering problems and didn’t want to risk the passage without good steering. We had to return to Key West without seeing the fort. 

Since we had already paid for a day of parking, we decided to see as much as we could of Key West. We walked over 5 miles. We saw the Key West  Lighthouse,

the Hemingway House with its 58 cats, many with 6 toes,

the Southernmost Point buoy,

the historic harbor, and walked the entire length of Duval Street.  We finished with dinner on the waterfront. 

Thursday, we went to the Key West Tropical Forest and Botanical Garden. It is the only frost free botanical garden in the U.S. and has mostly tropical plants and trees from Southern Florida and the Caribbean. It had lots of trails and boardwalks that wander throughout this tropical layout. It was very beautiful and we really enjoyed it.

Friday, we went to Fort Zachery Taylor State Historical Park. Work began in 1845 and the fort was in use through the Cuban Missile Crisis. It has never been fired at, but has been changed over the years when advances in weapons made that necessary. It was very interesting. We also spent a couple of hours at the beach there. It was a lovely afternoon.

On both Saturday and Sunday we circumnavigated Key West Island on our bikes. It is about 14 1/2 miles round trip from our campground and we discovered many out of the way and lovely places. Most of Key West has bike paths, but it got a bit scary in the downtown tourist section with all the tourists and Golf Carts, Scooters, bikes and vehicles! Sunday we ended the week with a sunset cruise on the schooner “When and If”. It is a lovely boat built in 1939 for General George Patton.

It was a lovely evening and we were under sail the entire cruise. It was a great way to end our week in Key West.

December 7, 

Nothing could be finer…

... than to be in South Carolina! We arrived in South Carolina on November 17. We stayed at Huntington Beach State Park just a bit South of Myrtle Beach and much, much quieter for a week. It is a lovely state park with beautiful beaches, lovely hikes and lots of wildlife. The Low Country, which is how they refer to this part of South Carolina, has lots of tidal marshes that attract lots of birds and we saw storks, egret, ibis, roseate spoonbills, herons and pelicans.

Across the road from the park is Brookgreen Gardens When you buy admission to the gardens, your ticket is good for a week so we were able to enjoy the garden over several days. Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington purchased the property (2 former rice plantations ) in1902 to set up a garden to display her sculptures. The property is now 9,000 acres (including the state parks, which is rented from the foundation for $1.00 a year, and includes 2,700 sculptures by 425 artists. The sculptures are spread out all over the beautiful gardens. The garden was set up for a winter light show which we were not able to see, but must be absolutely beautiful with over 1000 candles throughout the gardens floating in pools and in the planting areas. They also have a small zoo which features animals of the Low Country and information about the history of the former rice plantations. We took a pontoon boat tour in which the guide told us about the time when rice was king and how all the trees were cut down and acres upon acres of land was planted with rice. There are no longer rice plantations here because with the end of slavery the owners could not afford to run the plantations. 

 We also enjoyed going to Murrell’s Inlet. This little town is known for its seafood restaurants - Mark and my favorite was a huge plate of crab nachos which we shared for lunch! They also have a boardwalk that goes along the waterfront besides all the restaurants.

Steven was able to join us for the week of Thanksgiving. He flew into Myrtle Beach and camped with us for 2 nights at the beach. We were able to show him our favorite things in the area including Brookgreen Garden and he got to eat some great seafood too. On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, the three of us went west toTaylors, SC where my sister Ginger and her husband Chuck and her 2 sons live. My mom and sister Jackie drove down from Michigan and Ginger and Chuck’s daughter Emily flew in from Washington DC where she lives. It is the first time since 2006 that the whole family has been together and the first time since 2018 and 2019 (before covid) that we have seen any of them. We had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner and it was so nice to have the whole family together and the time to visit. 

On Friday morning 8 of us went to Top Golf and had a fun time hitting golf balls even though they didn’t often go in the holes.

Steven 

Laurie

None of us have golfed in years (or ever) and my mom commented that we must not watch a lot of golf on TV because our form left quite a bit to be desired! We also took quite a few hikes in the mountains near Ginger and Chuck’s house including Caesar’s Head State Park, Paris Mt State Park, Jone Gap State Park and Chestnut Ridge Preserve. That area of South Carolina is very beautiful!

Unfortunately, Steven had to leave Saturday and Mom, Jackie and Emily left Sunday. 

 We left Taylors on Monday morning and headed back to the Low Country. We spent 3 nights at Edisto Beach State Park about an hour south of Charleston where we had a lovely campsite just a few steps from the beach. The beaches are so different than most of our Oregon beaches as they are much flatter and have much smaller dunes. While we have been here, the waves have been much gentler too, although at night at high tide, the surf sounded wild! We walked the beach, walked some trails and biked on others. We also went to Botany Bay Heritage Preserve and Wildlife Management Area where we saw the ruins of 2 plantations that made up the preserve, had a raccoon and two minks run in front of our truck, and took a walk to the Bone Yard Beach. It was the first time I had heard the expression bone yard beach. It refers to trees that have been inundated by sea water, died, and stand like skeletons along the beach. They are very beautiful but at the same time, it is very sad. The preserve does not allow people to gather seashells along the beach so the beach had lots of shells and that was pretty neat too. People had hung many of the shells on dead tree branches. 

Thursday, we moved about an hour further south to Hunting Island State Park near Beaufort. We had a great campsite which reminded us of the jungle. In fact the Vietnam scenes from the movie Forrest Gump were filmed in the park. We hiked, biked and walked the beach. On Saturday, Ginger and Chuck joined us for 2 days and we hiked and climbed the lighthouse. We also spent a day exploring Beaufort which has huge antebellum homes and a beautiful river front. We also went on a 10 mile bike ride on the Spanish Moss trail which was built on old railroad grade. We loved the entire area. Now we are at Crooked River State Park, right across the river from Florida. We are here for 2 more nights before moving south to Florida.