Leaving the Everglades our journey took us north up the west coast of Florida along the Gulf of Mexico where our first stop was just outside of Saint Petersburg Florida; camping at Fort De Soto Park. But before making camp we stopped at one of St. Petersburg’s most memorable attractions, the Dali Museum. Javi had travelled there many years ago with his sister and has been a lifelong Dali fan so a stop at the Dali Museum was very much a not to miss item on the agenda. Although the museum had undergone some changes Javier was not entirely fond of since his last visit the art is still as amazing as ever and both of us enjoyed witnessing the masterpieces that Dali created throughout his lifetime.
Our trip to the museum stirred up quite an appetite and we decided that the only thing that could ease our hunger was campfire hotdogs!
Laura’s mother had long ago given us some campfire hotdog equipment that we had been dying to try so we stopped at a local grocery store and splurged on the natural organic hotdogs if there really is such a thing. We got all our fixings and drove to Fort De Soto excited for our evening feast. That night we experienced quite a windstorm at the campground, with a steady wind out of the north-west that didn’t let up the entire evening. It didn’t deter us from enjoying our campfire hotdogs though. On the contrary the wind blew the flames of our camp fire such that the hotdogs cooked almost instantly! The hotdogs were delicious so much so that the four we initially made weren’t enough and we made two more.
The next day we awoke to a beautiful day and hopped on our bikes eager to explore Fort De Soto. Riding our bikes through the park and exploring it’s beautiful beaches made for an excellent day. We had packed a lunch meaning we stayed out for the larger part of the day and returned back to camp as the day was coming to a close . One of the pieces of equipment we’ve been carrying along eager to use is the “Tentsile”. Essentially a tent that you can suspend from trees, it was given to us by a friend as a wedding present and we’d been dying to put it to good use. Javi set up the tent and we enjoyed the sunset floating five feet above the ground and enjoying an ice cold beer.
We struck camp the following morning and headed further north up the coast to Saint Joseph Peninsula State Park. Saint Joseph was probably one of the best camps we had encountered and despite the fact that we had a day of hard rain, the beach was incredible, the campground facilities were excellent and we had a great time visiting yet another one of Florida is beautiful Gulf Coast beaches. If you’re ever in the area do yourself a favor and be sure to visit Weber’s Little Donut Shop. We stumbled on this little gym while we were trying to avoid the rain with a shopping trip and it was well worth the find. We grabbed the last two glazed donuts that they had and our only regret was that we weren’t able to grab a dozen more because they were delicious!!!!
After a couple of nights at St. Joseph we continued up around the coast down the panhandle and made our way toward Fort Pickens Campground which is actually in the Gulf Islands National Seashore. We’ve somehow stumbled into an unfortunate habit of scheduling driving days during some of the best weather so we were eager to make haste and arrive at our destination to enjoy some sunshine. We got there just in time to enjoy a beautiful sunset as the evening cooled off. Unfortunately we did not have a lot of time in Fort Pickens as we were on a tight schedule to make it to Texas. The Fort and the National Seashore are incredible. We did get a chance to survey the fort which is an incredible relic from the Civil War. One of the nice things about this trip, in addition to the amazing landscapes and nature has been the chance to explore some of the country’s historic treasures. Next stop NOLA!!!
