Goodbye Grayton Beach State Park ..Hello Presnells Marina and RV park

Howdee all,

We tried to get a longer stay at Grayton Beach State Park...but they were full on this Valentines weekend.
Actually many of the State parks here fill up this time of year, and unless you make reservations in advance.
So we scrambled to find someplace to stay Thursday until Monday.
Jeff found this RV park and Marina on the road to St. Port St. Joes.
Wow did we get lucky.
and .............................there are Birds!
One thing we noticed is that there were not that many birds west of Panama City this time of year. So now as we travel east we are seeing more birds.

See the little island in the distance between the trees...

White Pelicans stay here in the winter..along with some Brown Pelicans, Egrets and we saw a flock of Ibis eating in the mud flats.
Birdies , Birdies everywhere.

The park is not fancy...just sites with electric and water.
Wifi at the office.

The Views are amazing...this is the view looking right which is north.

This is the view to the left which is to the south.
A nice dock...with lots of birdies! Mostly Brown Pelicans, laughing gulls and a few Herons.
Willets move through and feed in the flats.

We face West. The view out of our front window.

the view over the sofa.

Ballie is sleeping here...but spent most of the afternoon outside.

So we are enjoying our new temporary yard. Four nights....hummm maybe we should stay longer.

The sunset was very nice tonight.

Tomorrow we will check out the State Park and do some birding...if the weather holds out.
Rain is expected..
Well....we can always stay home and look out the windows.
Tee hee...


View Larger Map

Port St. Joe, Florida...... Skywatch Friday

Howdee all,
We are now camped here in Port St. Joe at an RV park and Marina.
The campground is slow this time of year. Which is nice for us.

It is Quiet ...The clouds were glowing this afternoon

and then the sunset....changed the tone

Laughing Gull eating at sunset....

Hope you have a Wonderful Skywatch Friday..
Go now and see other Sky's from around the world.

Grayton Beach State Park...our new Home

Howdee all,

We moved our Homey about 25 miles east to Grayton Beach State Park.
We had another week reserved at Henderson Beach State Park in Destin...but decided, after seeing this Park to switch. The Park is a bit more secluded.....Nice Lake, which we happened to be camped on...and hopefully a few more birdies.

See...that little square beyond the lake...that's our Homey.

We can walk to the beach from this Campground
This is a look East

and the view looking west


So we took an evening beach walk...The sun was setting...
not many people on the beach...

I think this is a mushroom cap jelly fish
Check out this link for information on jelly fish



and this little gem...is the bead i found on the windblown sand yesterday.
I say it is a native American bead made of shell.
What do you think?

Walking on Appalachian quartz ...Florida Panhandle

Wow what a difference a week makes...Its my kind of weather now...I don't know about you all...but perfect weather for me is mid sixties to low seventies...Sunny of course.

So being a bit warmer we took a few Dune-beach walks.

Mushrooms in Florida...Yipee....didnt eat these!
Aren't they just Divine.

through the woods...some water

A freshwater lake..


Past the water...Dunes
white sand...


Why is the Sand White along the Beaches in Destin Florida?

The sand here on the Emerald Coast is among the whitest, cleanest and softest in the world. What you might not know, is that when you walk on the beaches here, you are actually walking on the mountains - the Appalachian Mountains, that is.

The sand on the Emerald Coast beaches is comprised mainly of quartz washed down from the mountains by the Apalachicola River, 130 miles east of Ft. Walton Beach. It is this quartz, ground to a perfect oval in each grain of sand, that makes the beach "squeak" when you walk on it.

Normally, such quartz has a rosy pink tint because of it's iron oxide coating, but the sugary-white quartz of the Emerald Coast lost it's coating somewhere along it's watery journey thousands of years ago. No one knows exactly how or why.

So there ya go...I am hiking on the Appalachian Mountains...tee hee..

oh...look over the dunes...lets go there!


So Far in this part of the panhandle I am not finding shells, at least whole ones...
Just bits and pieces...
I did find an old Indian Bead...ha...that is my story and I am sticking to it...
I will take a photo of the bead...and post it later.

Oh ....Whats this hiding in the sand?


A sweet little Snowy Plover

and
This Great Blue Heron was not so shy

Well...
That's all for now....Tomorrow we move Homey to Grayton Beach State Park.

Goodbye for now from my Hiking Boots..


See ya....

A Walk in the woods ..Florida Pan handle

Howdee all,

It is finally warming up here in Sunny Florida. The temp yesterday reached mid sixties and today will be a bit warmer. The best thing is that it is not soooooooo cold at night! This morning was 49 rather than in the 20s that it was for a few nights.
We don't have to run our furnace all night ..so we are saving fuel.

So...our days have been spent checking out all the birdie spots from the Florida Birding Trail. What we have found is that it is not as birdie as mid to southern Florida......
We did get great views yesterday of the Bachmans Sparrow and Red-headed woodpeckers, as well as all the usual suspects.
I wasn't expecting to see the Woodpecker...I have been wanting to see one for a while...and I was fooling around with my MP3 player and decided to play the Red-headed woodpecker call to remind me what it sounded like.
The woodpecker heard the call and decided to call back....what fun.

We didn't have the scope with us so I didn't get any photos!

A few days ago we had a nice walk in the woods to a small gulf inlet. These are the photos below.
of our walk in the woods.

the woods were full of this lichen...


There are a half dozen species of ground lichens, or "reindeer moss" that sometimes carpet the sand in Florida scrubs. A lichen is not a single plant, but actually a combination of a fungus and an alga. Neither the fungus nor the alga can live alone, and the relationship is a type of symbiosis called obligate mutualism. Lichens are extremely slow-growing and very susceptible to air pollution. You won't find them in cities. Looking like puffy ground-clouds, gray lichens are Cladina evansii Lichens have no roots, obtaining moisture instead from the evening air and the dew. They are brittle and crunchy underfoot when dry, but soft as cotton balls when moist. Ground lichens are killed by fire and slow to repopulate. The longer a scrub has been without fire, the larger and more numerous are the lichens.


We walked to the inlet to look for birds...






Lots of Critter tracks...anyone know who this is?


and who makes this?


We stayed around to see if anyone would claim this home...but they must have been out for the day.

Another Lovely day in the Florida Panhandle.

I am sending some warmth up to you all in the freezing north lands...
Did you feel it?
Is the Ice melting?