There is always a great deal of excitement surrounding the start of a new camping season. There was more anticipation this year as it started our 15th camping season with Rosie, our Airstream trailer. Of course, we had nine camping seasons in our original 2007 Airstream Safari and five in our 2020 Airstream Flying Cloud. Fortunately, both of our Airstream trailers answer to the name Rosie.
After a long and very cold winter, we looked forward to heading to the Florida Gulf Coast beaches during "Spring Break" season. "Spring Break" is a family tradition because we spent many years tent camping in Port St Joseph Peninsula State Park during March in the days before Rosie. One of goals was to avoid the college students and Port St Joe was far enough from Panama City Beach to accomplish that goal.
We continued to camp in Port St Joe State Park in Rosie during “Spring Break” until the park closed due to hurricane damage. When it reopened, it was virtually impossible to get a reservation there unless you were a Florida resident because the State changed the reservation rules.
That started us looking at other options. Of course, there are private campgrounds near where we wanted to be, but most of these parks were expensive and their sites tend to be too close to each other.
Another option open to us was the half dozen military FamCamps in the Florida panhandle. We are grateful that we qualify to camp in them and this turned out to be a great alternative to state parks.
Our new tradition is to make reservations in the Destin Army Infantry Recreation Campground. While it is hard to get reservations there, it is not impossible.
It was exciting going to the storage area where we keep Rosie to start getting ready for our new camping season until we found a problem.
We knew one of our propane tanks was probably very low on fuel. I inspected the tank and tried to use the regulator to switch tanks. The knob fell off in my hand and Becky started smelling gas. We had a problem!
We had used the service department at Alabama RV Service and Storage in Wetumpka, Alabama several times in the past for non-Airstream issues. We called and they said they would squeeze us in the following week. We must have sounded desperate as we told them we planned to leave before then and really needed someone to help us. The service person asked if we could have Rosie there in 90 minutes. We said we could.
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| Heading to the service center |
We immediately raced home to put the hitch on our truck and returned to the storage area to quickly hitch-up and pulled out heading to Wetumpka. We arrived there with a few minutes to spare. We planned to be there for a few hours, but they finished about 30 minutes later.
It was a good thing that we took Rosie to the service center when we did because one of hoses from the regulator to the LP gas tank was also leaking. They replaced both hoses as a safety precaution and topped off the tanks.
We took Rosie back to the storage facility after our brief and unplanned visit to the service center and continued to prepare for our upcoming trip.
The weather changed on our travel day to cold, windy and rainy. It didn’t take long to get on our way for our first camping trip of the year.
The last time we drove to Destin, our truck misread one of the signs for Florida Highway 85 and moved our cruise-control from a comfortable 55 to 85 mph. It happened again on this trip, but we were ready for it and quickly reset the speed.
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| Water tower we pass heading to the Destin Army FamCamp |
Check-in was quick and we were able to park without any problems. Most of the sites in this campground are "tight" and we were thankful that we didn't have to ask our neighbors to move their trucks.
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| The Destin Army FamCamp |
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| Rosie in the Destin Army FamCamp |
We were the third Airstream trailer in the camping area when we arrived. A fourth Airstream trailer arrived a few days after us.
The weather cooperated during our visit. The first few days were on the cool side then it warmed up for the remainder of our time there.
This is an excellent park to enjoy the colorful sunsets. It is normally hard to find an empty chair and benches along the bay during sunset.
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| Sunset at Destin Army FamCamp |
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| Sunset view from the Splash Pad for children |
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| Sunset over the pier at Destin Army FamCamp |
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| Dancing along the shore to Glen Miller's "In the Mood," as suggested by our granddaughter |
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| Enjoying walking in the surf |
We had some entertainment while at this campground. Our neighbors directly across the street from us quickly tore down their site and hitched up to move to another site. About five minutes later, another trailer backed into that site and set up for a visit. We learned later that the original family at that site misread their reservations and thought they had an additional day. They were fortunate that the FamCamp had an additional site open for that night. I'm surprised I haven't made a similar mistake while camping somewhere.
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| Rosie in the campground area |
- We found one loop in this campground
- Our site was a back in
- Our site had some shade
- Most sites had very little space on both sides
- Our site was paved with asphalt and concrete
- Our site was slightly off level and we needed use our leveling tools
- Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service
- Our site had a water connection
- Our site had a sewer connection
- The trash dumpster was at the entrance of the campground. It was easy to walk there with your trash
- There was a bathhouse in the campground. It was very clean
- There was a laundry room in this campground
- The park provide WiFi service. It was slow and worked best before 7 a.m.
- AT&T provided 3 bars of 5G voice and data service over our campsite
- We were able to watch CBS, CW, NBC and PBS using Rosie’s TV antenna. Digital channels seen were ION, ME-TV, Movies
- The FamCamp provided a cable TV connection. We normally use the antenna and skip the cable connection.
- There were restaurants and shopping nearby
- This was a pet friendly park
