Post-Camping Update...

OK! So our little cross-state experiment went pretty well! I had to exhibit some flexibility in the schedule (which is difficult for me), and there are a few things I would change. But overall, "we done good!"

The 2 nights at Aunt Courtney's were a breeze, and the Goofy Golf and day at the Magic Kingdom were great too. Then we headed over to St. Augustine. It was a relatively short (2 hours) drive through the town of Christmas (I'm a nerd and made the kids get out and take a pic in front of the "Welcome to Christmas" sign...). We then hit St. Augustine, and went immediately to the lighthouse. It was amazing! We all climbed to the top for amazing views of the Atlantic on one side, and historic St. Augustine on the other. Although the kids weren't super-interested in the Educational and Historical stuff, I did make them learn 3 things: How many steps to the top (219), how old it was (122 years), and how high it was (40 stories). Then we went for a hike on the trails around the grounds, and headed over to the old city.

We crossed the "Bridge of Lions", which I honestly thought had lion statues on it (wrong.) Then we took a quick left and parked at the Castillo de San Marcos national Monument. This was a REALLY COOL fort. Spectacular views, awesome architecture, great history. They even had cannons! Karlin and I could have wandered and read the signs all day but Chase's cranky stomach had other ideas, so after an hour of exploring we headed out. We opted out of the Fountain of Youth when we found out that a) no one can actually confirm that Ponce de Leon was ever there, and b) most historians now think the whole fountain was a ruse to begin with - just a way to get the Spaniards to leave the natives alone. We had a quick lunch, and then went to check in at Anastasia State Park. We had a great, clean campsite on a relatively secluded tent-only loop. The campsite kind of backed up to another, but it wasn't too bad. The bathrooms were only about 50 steps away (but out of sight), and the kids could ride their scooters on the loop. We set the tent up (Karlin and I rocked it), then drove the 3/4 mile down to the beach.

The Atlantic beach is a little different than the Gulf. The water is much more rough, and the sand is more hard-packed. It was a little overcast and a little drizzly while we were there, but the kids loved it anyway. I sat a read, and they played tag with the waves, chased sea gulls, and built sand forts. It was too windy to fly kites, so we just hung out and watched the sun set behind the dunes.

Sunset was our signal to get back to camp and light the grill. I can honestly say that I - by myself - lit the charcoal and grilled cheeseburgers that were to die for! (I don't know what it is about being outside that makes food taste so damned good, but it does!) We had our Christmas lights up on the tent, the lantern hung from the post near the fire, 2 paper lanterns hung about the campsite, and two flameless candles on the picnic table. Cheeseburgers were YUMMY! And - being the consummate Girl Scout - I then HAD to make smores. These were also fantastic! There's something about being all sticky with marshmallow goo and listening to some chillin tunes on the Ipod that just make it seem like all is right with the world. It helped, too, that we could hear the surf from our campsite!

After quick showers, we all hit the rack. The trees were dropping these little seed pod thingies - small like sand, but if you left your drink or food unattended for more than a few minuted, you'd have tree seed thingies in it. The up side of this was that during the night, the seed thingies fell lightly on the tent, sounding a little like light rain. Made for a GREAT night's sleep!

The next morning we had a quick breakfast, packed up camp, and headed back to the beach for a little bit. Then we struck out headed West...I had Oysters on my mind! :)

This part of the journey was my first miscalculation. It took a LOT longer to get from St. Augustine to Apalachicola than I thought. Mapquest said just over 4 hours, but Mapquest doesn't factor in the miles and miles of roads out in the middle of nowhere. These roads had speed limits of 60 to 25, and usually had a cop hidden out somewhere to catch unsuspecting city folk who came blazing through. Fortunately, this city girl used to be a small town girl, so I knew what to look for. Reality was closer to 5 1/2 hours, which is a long time to be in the car. The country between Tallahassee is beautiful - gorgeous coastlines, quaint little beach houses (no mega-mansions), small Mom & Pop stores. The down side is that is is quite literally in the middle of nowhere.

Eventually, we crossed the bridge into Apalachicola. I had never been before, and it looked a lot like I expected it to. A little historic downtown, lost of waterways and shrimp/fish/oyster boats. We ate at a little place called Papa Joe's, where I had 2 dozen scrumptious oysters and a vat of seafood Gumbo. (It should be noted here that it's REALLY, REALLY hard to get this kind of food in Tampa.) After our late lunch, we were off to St. Joseph's Peninsula State Park in Cape San Blas.

It was only about 30 minutes from Papa Joe's to the park, but man, you may as well have driven off the planet. There was about 20 minutes of nothin. And I mean nothin - no gas stations, no CVS...NOTHIN. Then you turned left to get onto the cape, and finally....something! Houses...TONS of them. Mack-daddy million dollar homes, right along beautiful gulf beaches and shore-side waterways. But still not much else. There was a small gas station, a pizza shop...maybe a few other things. I kept thinking: "Where do these people buy groceries? Where do they work?"

Once we got into the park, we found our campsite. It was gorgeous - you could see the dunes on one side, and some wetlands from another. It was a little close to the neighbors, but we manages to block them with the truck and the tent. The boardwalk to the beach was 25 steps away, and the beach was right there. And what a beach it was! GORGEOUS! White sands, sand dunes, shells, blue water. After setting up camp, we went down to the beach for the rest of the afternoon, and this time watched the sun set over the gulf. That night, we took a nightwalk and saw quite literally the most stars I have ever seen! It was really cool.

Of course, there was a bad side (or two.) Our neighbors kept a steady stream of smoke flowing into our campsite, even though they weren't using their fire pit 75% of the time. There were no "tent only" loops at this campground, so we had a wide array of $100,000 RVs all around us. The bathrooms and showers were a bit of a hike. And we were off the grid. I mean Off. The. Grid. No Wi Fi (which I expected.) No cell service (which almost caused Bart to have a coronary.) I had to run around camp with my phone in the air and one leg sticking up trying to get enough of a signal to send him a text saying we were OK. Then there was Chase, who managed to lock himself in the shower stall not once, but twice. And then he pulled the tent stakes up while all the stuff was still inside the tent.

But overall it was pretty cool. The next morning we spent a half-day at the beach, and then headed west to Pensacola. (We opted out of the Marianna caves in order to spend more time on the beach.)

What would I do differently?

1) I would make the drives a little shorter. I should have spaced the campgrounds out so that we never had to go more than 3 1/2 hours to get to one.

2) I would have planned to stay more than one night at each campsite. It's really hard to set up a whole camp, and then break it down 12 to 14 hours later. Plus, when you only stay 1 night, you never really get a chance to explore the campground (ours were both in State Parks). There were hiking trails and sand dune walks and all kinds of stuff we never got to see ot do.

3) I will never, ever drive Highway 98 through the Panhandle again. I looked at the map, and decided "It's more than 60 miles back up to I-10 - it will probably be faster to just take 98 on over." Bart seconded this decision, but we were both WRONG. The drive that should have taken about 3 hours took 5. In heavy stop-and-go traffic. With stop lights every 1/2 mile. Miserable.

Overall though I thought it was a success. I was really tired when we got to Pensacola. It's hard being the Full-time parent when you are off your home turf. But now that I've had a few weeks to reflect back on it, I think I would do it again.

The kids and I are eyeballing the Keys for next year. If we spread things out a bit, i think it might work. Maybe Bart can even go with us next time...