Alabama to Florida

Blink, and we passed thru Alabama with one overnight stay in Gulf Shores. The tides were too low to take the ferry from Dauphin Island to Fort Morgan, so we drove up thru Mobile and back down to Gulf Shores. It was really nice to be hugging the coast again! We were lucky to find a spot to park for the night, and even luckier that it was within a short ride to the Gulf Shores State Park, another state park gem!

There was a 20 mile loop with a perfect bike/pedestrian trail, and while rain threatened and had been pouring recently, we were able to avoid it on our ride. We saw a bald eagle and its nest, alligator, and pines and palm trees in the same forests. It was really beautiful.

We stopped to look at another alligator, and several other cyclists stopped as well, and before you know it, everyone was standing with their backs to the poor alligator, talking about our e-bikes, and then taking test rides!

Uneventful travel past here, except blinding rain and winds, all the way to Tallahassee. Since it’s high snowbird season in Florida, there are no vacancies anywhere for overnight RV stays. We knew this going on but decided to wing it anyways. Luckily, this Elk got us a spot at the Tallahassee Lodge, which also happened to have an open lounge and pool tables. John and I made friends, dried off, and got a break from the RV for a couple hours.

We’d really love to send some of this cold, windy, rainy weather we seemed to have stolen from California right on back to y’all. (See what I did there?) There’s a whole new language out here in the south, I guess it started in Texas and kept on going!

West Coast Florida

So as I mentioned, we’ve been bringing or chasing un-vacation-like weather. We’ve still been wearing our jeans, puffy jackets and SOCKS for crying out loud!

Since the weather was crappy, we decided to stick to the interstate for awhile before turning coastward on Hwy 19 toward our destination, Cedar Key, where we found a place that would squeeze us in for the night. Once we turned off the interstate and started driving right through rural northern Florida, we began to look for interesting distractions to stop for a lunch break.

We found a couple state parks close to each other, and pulled into the first one, called Fanning Springs. This was a sleepy little park, which boasted natural hot springs that fed into the Suwannee River, and was a natural attraction for manatees in the winter when the river is cooler.

There was a big pool that people are allowed to swim in when no alligators are around.

We enjoyed this spot and hardly anyone was here, so we felt like we had the whole place to ourselves!

Next stop was Manatee Springs State Park, not too terribly far away, and this was a larger park with a couple campgrounds and more activities like hiking, boating, and observation boardwalks as well as a similar natural warm pool as the one back at Fanning. We paid the day use fee, because when we called earlier to see if there were any open campsites available, they referred us to the website which said they were full.

So we went for some walks, saw a manatee out near the entrance to the river (same – Suwannee), and decided to head out after a quick bite. As we exited the park, John went into the ranger kiosk and found out that there was a cancellation (because some wimps didn’t like the rainy weather), so we changed plans and grabbed that site and decided to stay here rather than Cedar Key.

Since we needed to find a spot for the following night, and there was no cell service in the park, and we needed to re-provision food, fuel, etc., we went into town to do all that.

This park was full, but super quiet, and we watched a mama manatee with a baby, did a few mile interpretative loop, and settled into our campsite amongst the trees.

Since it was cold, we opted for a Dutch oven lasagna that night and planned so that we’d have leftovers for future meals.

We were sitting around that evening when the campground host came around, going to each site, to let everyone know that there was a freeze forecast for that night and to leave faucets dripping etc. Since we had power and water hookups, we managed just fine and didn’t notice the chill that seems to have left California with us and followed us across the country!!