Fort Pickens Campground - Pensacola, Florida ( April 2019)

We both grew up in Florida near the beach. Driving on roads with a little wind-blown beach sand on them is very nostalgic to us. Driving on roads with the beach on one side and a bay or lagoon on the other stirs up familiar and happy feelings from our childhoods. We love Florida's beaches and the roads leading to them.

The Pensacola Beach sign at night

The road with a little sand on it

It is always interesting to read reviews on AllStays, RV Parky and Campendium left by other campers  Some people complain about beach sand being blown on the access road to Fort Pickens Campground. I'm not sure what their expectations are from a campground at a beach, but I am willing to bet they are very different from ours. Very different!

It felt great driving to our campsite on a road that had some beach sand on it. We also enjoyed seeing the beach on one side of the road and the bay on the other. I think most campers with beach reservations are equally happy to see the tell tale signs of the coast. 

The sign at the park's entrance

There was a potential problem when we arrived at our site. It was designed for trailers with doors in the front. Rosie has a rear door. (Rosie is our 25 foot Airstream trailer.) If we parked where the campground designer wanted us, we would only have a few inches to step on before a steep dropoff from the asphalt pad. The potential for an ankle injury was high. 

The solution was easy. We needed to park as close to the edge as possible so that Rosie’s door steps hung over the dirt on the side of the asphalt pad. 

The solution to Rosie's step problem

Once the parking problem was solved, it was time to enjoy the park. It’s a good thing that there are many ways to enjoy this campground. One example is the “Blues,” short for the Navy’s Blue Angels. 

We were wondering if the Blue Angels were at their home base, Pensacola’s Naval Air Station. The answer came to us in a roar our second morning. You get used to hearing military jets overhead in this park since all Navy and Marine pilots train across the Bay at the Navy base. You cannot mistake the intensity of the jet engines when the “Blues” are screaming over Rosie. It is a thrilling sight to see some of the best Navy and Marine pilots practice their skills as they fly over the park.

The "Blues" flying over Fort Pickens

Things took a serious turn on our third day. The weather forecast called for severe thunderstorms, driving rain, strong winds and an elevated threat of tornadoes after dark and until about 2 a.m. People camping in tents packed up and headed to hotels for the night. The RV and motor home campers secured or packed up everything outside before retreating inside to ride out the storm. 

Well, almost everyone. One of our campsite neighbors, the one with every camping gadget imaginable under their outside canopy, skipped the storm preparation task. 

As predicted, the storm woke us up several times during the night. It was entertaining during those times to look out Rosie’s window to see by the light of  lightening flashes what things had blown away from our neighbor’s site. 

Speaking of the storm, I was very grateful we moved closer to the edge of our site’s asphalt pad when we first arrived. A tree branch ran parallel to Rosie’s side. It was about six inches away from Rosie at first then about two feet away after we moved. During the worst of the storm, I estimated that the branch was swaying about ten inches and would have smashed into Rosie had we not moved. 

The tree on the side of the Rosie

Rosie in the campground

Temperatures turned cooler after the storm. I guess our reward for riding out the storm was perfect camping weather. 

One visitor said that a park census found that more than 150 osprey nests were currently “active” in the park. That was easy to believe. We saw nests and adult birds attending to their chicks all over the park. 

An Osprey enjoying his fresh fish dinner 

A bald eagle family was also residing in the park. We may have been the only family that didn’t get a photo of the juvenile eagle flying around the campground. 

There are some good bicycle trails in this park. We also noticed several people brought their canoes and kayaks, but we could not figure out where they launched them. 

One of the bike/foot trails includes a nice footbridge over a pond that is home to several large turtles. We always enjoyed looking for the big “granddaddy” turtle. 

A turtle in the pond

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• You have to use Reserve America to book a site in this park. It always amazes me how Reserve America keeps finding new ways to make booking a campsite more difficult. 
• There are five camping loops in this park. Loop A is separate from the remaining loops, which all run together in one large field. 
• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service 
• Our site had a water connection with good pressure
• Our site did not have a sewer connection 
• There are two dump stations in the park. The first serves Loop A and the second is for the remaining loops. This means that you will probably be in a line to use the dump station. 
• Our site had an asphalt pad. We had to use one leveling pad to correct a slight lean to the left. 
• Our pad was very narrow. To avoid a situation where we could accidentally twist an ankle exiting Rosie, we parked as close to the edge of the pad as possible. 
• There are multiple bathhouses throughout the park. They all seemed to be the stereotypical federal bathhouses in that they are cinderblock and concrete structures painted shades of gray. 
• Water temperature and pressure in the showers were pleasant surprises. There was hot water and strong pressure. 
• We had only one bar of AT&T 4G voice and data service. We had to drive to the fishing pier several times to do something online. 
• We may have made a discovery about our TV system. FOX was the only station that occasionally drifted in enough for us to watch. We mentioned this to several neighbors who said they were receiving more than a dozen stations. We will check the performance of our amplifier and TV antenna when we return home. 

Similar to our last campground, we noticed several people packing up and switching sites every morning. Some Florida State Parks remain closed or continue being used as staging grounds for reconstruction after Hurricane Michael last year. This resulted in hundreds of campsites closing along the Gulf Coast and has people scrambling to get reservations somewhere else. If you’ve ever tried to get reservations in a Florida State Park, it is even more difficult now. 

We did notice an odd situation while camping at Fort Pickens. We went out to dinner one evening and returned after the park’s entrance station closed. We drove up to the keypad where you enter the secret code to open the gate. Next to the code on the back of the car pass was a request that you stop once entering the park to block the road until the gate closes, which we did. A car quickly came up behind us then turned around when it was apparent that we were not letting anyone piggyback in. Maybe “stealth” camping is a problem there. 

Along one of the hiking trails

Becky standing on one of the artillery batteries

A selfie at the fort

Inside the fort

A cannon at the fort

A frequent visitor at our camping site

Rosie at night

The footbridge

Rosie in our camping site

Becky along the beach

Big Lagoon State Park - Pensacola, Florida (March 2019)

One of our family’s long-standing camping traditions was to spend spring break camping at T.H. Stone St. Joseph Peninsula State Park in Florida. This was a wonderful park and one of our favorites.

Was?

We are not there this year and the park is probably empty. That’s because Hurricane Michael turned the peninsula into multiple islands. You have to use a boat to get to it. Port St. Joe Peninsula State Park is closed and unlikely to reopen anytime soon. 

That is very sad to us. 

The state park near Port St. Joe isn’t the only Florida park closed this year. Several parks haven't recovered in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael. We hope these parks quickly reopen. 

If you have camped in a Florida State Park before, you know that you have to make your reservations about a year before you want to arrive there. When it was time to plan our Spring Break trip, we decided that we would take Rosie, our 25 foot Airstream trailer, to Big Lagoon State Park near Pensacola instead of Port St. Joe. Pensacola is a few hours closer to our home and we thought that it would be interesting to go somewhere different on what has become our "shake-down" camping trip for the year. We didn’t know how fortunate that decision was at the time.

Sign at entrance of Big Lagoon State Park

We reserved our site in Big Lagoon State Park for two weeks. It was a form of entertainment to watch our neighbors as they moved sites nearly every day. We found out that most of these people had reservations at one of Florida’s closed parks and had to scramble to replace those reservations with something else, a day or two at a time. 

Rosie in our campsite at Big Lagoon

There is a variety of camping sites at Big Lagoon. Some sites have concrete pads while others are paved with soft beach sand. Most of the sites had some form of scrubs around them so that you didn't see your neighbors. We were fortunate in that we had a site with a concrete pad.

We kept hearing some of our fellow campers asking about what there was to do in this park. At first glance, it may appear that the options are limited, but this isn’t accurate. This is a park that you need to bring your bicycles and kayaks to. There are several trails that are great for bikes and the road in the campground area is paved. There are several lagoons and waterways that are fun for kayaks. To answer our neighbor's question, there are plenty of things to do in this park.

The lookout tower at Big Lagoon

View from the lookout tower

Walkway over the area next to the lagoon

Becky and Suzy on one of the hiking paths

An Osprey watches the nest

One of the bike/hiking paths we enjoyed included a small footbridge over a finger of the lagoon. We saw alligators there during a previous trip. We were happy to see a small alligator there this time.

A baby alligator and a turtle 

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• There are three camping loops in this park. 
• Our site had a concrete pad. 
• Our site had 30 and 20 amp electrical service. There are some 50 amp sites in this park. 
• Our site had a water connection. We noticed that the water filter in the kitchen sink needed to be replaced, but we left our spare at home. We were able to order a new one online and had it delivered to us in the park. 
• Our site did not have a sewer connection. 
• There was one dump station located at the entrance to the campground. It was common to see several campers waiting in line for their turns at the dump station. 
• There were three restrooms/showers in the camping areas. The one nearest us was exceptionally clean during our visit. (Thanks, volunteers!)
• There was a camp store in the first loop. It never opened while we were there. 
• AT&T placed a strong 4G signal over our campsite for voice and data. 
• Similar to many state parks, Big Lagoon does not provide WiFi. 
• We were able to watch ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and PBS TV stations using Rosie's antenna. We also received digital signals from GRIT, ME-TV and Comet. The signal strength would fluctuate during the day. We were glad we brought our over-the-air DVR from home loaded with episodes of shows we wanted to watch. 

We were amazed at the number of Airstream units we saw while we were in this campground. During the two weeks we camped in Big Lagoon, we saw eight Airstream trailers, two Airstream motor homes and a Nest there. 

It is a good thing that we have a “shake down” trip before we start our camping season. We discovered that we left some important things home. We updated our camping list and will be better prepared for our next trip. 

Getting ready to kayak in the lagoon

Out on the water

Tug pushing a barge

A great place for fresh and local seafood

A heron along the shore

A squadron of pelicans fly by

Sunset over the lagoon

The moon over the lagoon

Becky displaying a couple of watercolor pictures she painted at Big Lagoon

Fall Creek Falls State Park- Tennessee (November 2018)

Our visit to Fall Creek Falls State Park started with a GPS fail. Two out three of the GPS units we use called for a turn on a road that quickly turned into a single lane gravel trail. We were in too deep to back out when the road became mostly dirt.

As a point of reference, we call our built-in truck GPS “Jack,” our Garmin GPS is known as “Jill” and Google Maps on our iPhone hasn’t developed enough personality to earn a name. Jack and Jill agreed that we needed to drag Rosie, our 25 foot Airstream trailer, down the substandard roads. Google was napping at that time and wasn’t around to participate in the decision.

Two miles later, we were on a paved but narrow road entering the park from what had to be the wrong direction. I doubt many people would bring their campers down those roads.

Fall Creek Falls State Park sign

We were amazed at the lack of signage in this park needed to get poor lost souls on the right path. As expected, our GPS systems were equally confused as to where the campground office was located. 

By chance, we stumbled on the office and were given a map to our campsite. It was easy to follow and we quickly found our site.

Our site in Fall Creek Falls State Park

This wasn’t our first visit to Fall Creek Falls State Park, but it was the first time we took Rosie there. We camped in the park several times during our tent days. Those visits were probably a dozen years ago. 

Our memories from our tent days were mixed. Weekend campers there during the summer tended to ignore quiet hours, loved sharing their loud radios and TVs with their neighbors and depended on the other campers to keep an eye on their children. I don’t think these were problems unique to this park. We always enjoyed Fall Creek Falls more during the week when the weekenders were gone. 

We noticed that the RV camping sites were significantly more spacious and private than how we remembered the tent sites. Since we were there during November, only a few hardy souls were in our camping loop. 

The weather wasn’t our friend during this visit. The leaves were past peak colors and were quickly falling from the trees. There was a small team of employees driving through the park with leaf blowers attached to their tractors trying to clear the roads. The frequent rain showers encouraged the leaves to fall faster.

Becky on the suspension bridge

A trail in Fall Creek Falls State Park

At Fall Creek Falls

Another weather factor was the temperature. Daytime highs were in the low 50s and lows were in the low 40s. We decided to leave a day early to avoid the predicted low temperature of 22 degrees the next night. Sure, we could keep Rosie nice and warm in during subfreezing temperatures, but the thought of hooking up in those temperatures wasn’t appealing. We decided it was time to head south. 

Between rain showers, we were able to visit the famous swimming hole.

The swimming hole

We also worked in hikes to several waterfalls and to one suspended footbridge over one of the creeks. We kept saying during our hikes that this is a great park with lots to see and do.

The Falls

Becky at the base of the falls

Another view of the falls

We missed several things from our previous trips. On that list was renting a canoe to explore the lake and eating dinner in the lodge. We guess the boat rental area was closed for the season and the lodge was demolished so the State can build a new one. 

We were amazed at what was open in the park. The General Store, Camping Outfitter Store and several snack bars were open for business in what could only be described as the off-season for the park. 

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• Our site was in camping loop B
• Our site was paved
• Our site was level
• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service 
• Our site had a water connection 
• Our site had a sewer connection 
• The park provided four days of free WiFi access. It appeared that there was a fee for additional days of service 
• AT&T placed two bars of 4G LTE service over our site 
• We were able to see only PBS using Rosie’s TV antenna. Our over-the-air DVR that we record our favorite TV programs and movies on helps when our TV options are limited. 
• The bathhouse and restroom near our site was clean and warm. 
• This is a surprisingly expensive park. While the camping fees are somewhat on the higher side of what you would expect for a state park, the tack-on fees and taxes push the nightly costs to well above the norm. 

We frequently mentioned how much we enjoyed this park and noted that we needed to return soon. 

We saw several deer in this park

Steve and Suzy

Steve on the suspension bridge

Becky and Suzy

Another waterfall in the park