Saturday, March 21, 2020

Driving around the Southeast

This post spans several states, as we drove from South Carolina down to Florida and then up to Alabama and finally back to Florida, with a bit of Georgia too.  It's a good thing I keep a workout log so I could go back and figure out where we were.

For starters - Skidaway Island state park.  The campground is large, shady, quiet and very pleasant.  We're starting to gravitate toward state parks because many have trails right out the door.  Many of those trails are camera-worthy, including at Skidaway.

The highlight here was the variety of shapes in the vegetation:


We are definitely still in swamp territory:


Fun run through the fronds:


Just driving down the road with house in tow:


We next camped east of Jacksonville, and while driving around in Tug (our truck) we noticed a ferry was boarding.  Looks like a shortcut over to the A1A, let's get on!


Getting a whole lot better at ID'ing pelicans, especially when we get up-close views from a ferry barge:


Just a little bit of route 1A1 for now.  On our subsequent drive down the east coast of Florida we followed it for long stretches (in between jumps out to I-95 for quicker movement) and it was fun seeing all the coastal towns, beach areas, palm trees...


Somewhere in the Florida panhandle - a solar farm, yay!


One big accomplishment for February was -finally- reaching the highest point in Florida, all 345 feet of it.  It has been humorous to us that we were lacking only the lowest and highest highpoints of the 50 states.  Now, with #49 in the books, we're left with the obvious challenge of Denali (and no specific plans yet to attempt it, we shall see).


Signing the register:


It's a nice little roadside park:



Woo hoo, last highpoint for a while!


Another excellent state park - Oak Mountain near Birmingham, and an even larger set of trails to explore.  We didn't get even close to see the whole thing and hopefully we'll get a chance to come back sometime.


There were plenty of hills to train on, and a little pond on top of one of them:


After being in the lowlands it was nice to get a view again:


A historical site, complete with a piece of the wreckage:


The patterns in this rootstock struck me as interesting:


Lovely path along a creek:


OK, now jumping ahead... we parked Howie (our travel trailer) at Lake Guntersville and started a "Tug Tour" for several weeks.  The truck is set up with a bed in the back so we can sleep comfortably in it.  We alternated camping and hotel rooms as we meandered down through Alabama (running an FKT along the way), Georgia, and back to Florida.

Back to the sandy shores, and a bit of wildlife to welcome us:


We had time to enjoy a beach or two along the way:


In the middle of this photoset we spent a day at Kennedy Space Center, but that's a blog post in itself (next up!).

Jetty Park campground was an excellent find, close to Cape Canaveral and within walking distance of the Atlantic.  We went for an early morning stroll and John realized that we were probably looking at the port we cruised out of with the family a couple years ago.


Looking for sunrise:


Florida is not lacking in birds to photograph:


Our pelican friends are here too:


Love watching pelicans glide over the water:


One more stop - Blowing Rocks!  I believe someone on Facebook recommended this place, so I followed the "star" I had placed on my Google Map and we ended up here.  So glad we did, it's neat.  Starting with the vegetation lacing over the shady path:


"No, not lava this time!" rocks along the beach:


Fun with camera angles:


Sometimes at high tide when the wind is right, there are little blowholes around here.


An excellent tunnel through the vines and a great place for a walk:


Next up - SPACE!

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