St. Joseph Peninsula and Manatee Springs, Florida

We left after the cave tour at Florida Caverns and headed back towards the coast.

Florida has lots of State Parks with beaches and camping but I'm glad we ended up at

St. Joseph Peninsula State Park.

It was a bit more out of the way and that paid off because the beach was all but deserted.

We got a campsite for the night and walked to the beach before we even unloaded the car.  We were rewarded with the beautiful sugary sand that Florida is so famous for.  Oh, fun fact: that white, soft, fluffy sand is almost pure quartz and is a result of years and years of erosion from the Appalachian Mountains!  

First person we encountered was Jack, a volunteer at the state park, who was doing some fishing.  He and his wife come down from Michigan every winter and volunteer for two months.  In exchange for 20 hours work per week they get to camp for free.  Not a bad deal.

After talking for a few minutes he got a strike on his line which looked like a whopper... 

Turned out to be this sting ray!  Which he released back into the surf.

Hungry from all the excitement and with the sun going down we set up camp and had dinner.

Nothing exciting, just canned soup.

Next morning, since you can't oversleep in a tent, we headed down for a quick swim and a walk on the beach before breaking down camp and heading on towards...

Manatee Springs!

Ugh!  No, this isn't the springs and no, we didn't swim in this, although scuba divers do go into these sink holes to cave dive!

Ahhhh, this is the springs.  Unfortunately, no manatees were around.  A manatee is a mammal kind of similar to a seal or sea lion, if you've never heard of them.  They swim up the Sewanee River into the spring during the winter because the spring water is about 72 degrees.

Sun was going down so we headed back to camp and made a pretty decent taco dinner with canned chicken.  Of course a fresh avocado and tomato made all the difference,and the wine didn't hurt either.

Next morning while looking for manatees we learned about Squirreliosis...

In addition to squirrels, the other thing that Manatee Springs has is lots of vultures!  There must have been a hundred of them roosting in the trees and along the paths.  

Very creepy, no idea what attracts them to the area....*shudder*

There's a path from the spring down a creek to where the water joins the Sewanee River.

Alas, still no sight of the elusive manatees...

Next stop: Disney World!

Fountain of Youth, Sinkholes, and Caves...

After spending the night in Pensacola we continued east...

First stop: Ponce de Leon Springs

This is what Ponce de Leon believed to be the "Fountain of Youth".  Unfortunately it was a bit chilly for a swim but we did dip our toes in so they should last a long time.

Next: Falling Waters State Park

Florida is riddled with sink holes due to its Karst topography.  That's a fancy word for limestone, basically.  Florida was sea bed and is made up of shells and other marine life compressed into limestone.  Rain water picks up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and eats it way thru the limestone.

This is a large sinkhole made larger by a waterfall plunging into it.  This is also the tallest waterfall in the state at 73 feet high.

After seeing the sinkholes and having a picnic at Falling Waters SP we headed on to

Florida Caverns State Park.

We're travelling in Angie's Mazda, "LeProtege," rather than LeTigre since we'll be returning to Austin in March to take care of some things (ie: taxes) and get Kipper.  That means camping in a tent!  Something we don't have much experience with.  This was the first night.  Looks cozy, right?  It was pretty good but we do miss LeTigre's bed... (Angie misses the bed a lot, she doesn't sleep well on the ground.)  Oh, and thanks to my brother David and his wife Pam, for lending us all their camping supplies!!

The Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) did a lot of work in Florida Caverns SP during Roosevelt's New Deal plan, including building the visitor's center.

Remember those sinkholes?  The cave at Florida Caverns was discovered in one.

In we go!  When the cave was discovered it was just a crawl space for the most part.  The CCC crews went into the narrow passages and, with the help of scientists, mapped the cave with gas lanterns!  Then, without disturbing the cave formations and without any explosives, they dug the floor down by hand so that visitors could walk thru the cave!

They dubbed themselves "the Gopher Gang".

They also ran all the electric for lighting so that it doesn't have to be explored by flashlight.  Here Angie poses with a large flowstone and some columns.  They were dry at the time (not flowing) but there're some little pools at the bottom.  Activity in the cave varies with rainfall.

Another flowstone.  Our Ranger tour guide informed us that it's estimated that the formations grow an inch per hundred years!  You can also see in this photo how the floor has been excavated down a few feet by the CCC, it was originally at the same height as the foundation of the flowstone formation.  All of the work was done by hand!

A cave resident taking a snooze.  This bat is about as big as your thumb!

Look close, what do you see?  Yep, shells.  The ceiling was comprised of shells and other stuff you'd find on the ocean floor.  There was even a shark's tooth protruding from the ceiling in another room!  The CCC "Gopher Gang" were careful not to disturb the ceiling and only excavated downward.

The "Gopher Gang" had clever names for the different rooms in the cave.  This was called "the Christmas Room" because of a formation that looks like a Christmas tree towards the back of this photo.  It was taken one step further with the colored lights.  Stalagtites and Draperies hang overhead.

Our guide shines her flashlight on a drapery to illustrate how much they look like bacon.

Mmmmm bacon...

After that all we could think about was food so it was time to leave.

Next stop: the beach!

Houston Hospitality, Baton Rouge Reunion, Mississippi Lunar Lander?, and Flora-Bama!

After a couple of months in Austin we're finally back on the road!
Austin was a blast but also a reminder that our year of travel will end eventually and we'll have to get our feet back on the ground and earn some money.
But not quite yet!

Heading east to the Florida Keys so Houston was our first stop.

Angie's got family a'plenty in Space City so we stayed with Jason and Kay at "Chez Kay" where we finally got to meet our new niece, Olivia, who was born during the first leg of our trip!

Angie, Olivia (so cute!), Holly, and Joel  

Sadly, Kipper was not with us because he would have loved Zoe, the resident pup.

Jason and Angie devouring pancakes and ham...

We had a fantastic dinner and then pancakes the next morning thanks to Jason and Kay.  Somehow we managed to leave without getting a photo with Kay and Jeremy... ooops!

Anyone that knows us in Austin probably knows that most of our friends are from Baton Rouge.  Back in the 90's, some moved to Austin for music, others for school, jobs, etc and most stayed.   Laura and Layne never lived in Austin, but we met them through mutual friends.  They were kind enough to give us a bed for the night.  It was nice to catch up with them as we hadn't seen them in years.

We went to The Chimes for dinner........an old Baton Rouge favorite.  SO favorite, in fact, that they built a second one, The Chimes East.  Some might say this is sacrilege.  I say it was a shorter drive.  And just as delicious!

Technically, it was their son, Ben's, room (Thanks Ben!).

Ben just happens to have the coolest lego collection outside of Lego Land.

The pirate ship on the left appears to be attacking Legoville...

Out of Louisiana and onto Mississippi!

Just over the state line there's a great rest area with a visitor's center that includes, of all things,  a life-size model of a lunar lander!  Turns out that there's a testing facility nearby for rocket engines.

Inside the visitor's center was some information about Hurricane Katrina and some before and after photos of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

We continued on a coastal road and stopped to admire the beautiful beaches...

Sadly, just across the road, there're vacant lots (many for sale) where homes used to be before Katrina.

When in doubt take a ferry ride!  We continued into Alabama and drove thru Dauphin Island and crossed over to Gulf Shores via a ferry boat.  We were hoping to camp at Gulf State Park but a bunch of other people had the same idea.

As it was getting dark and we had no place to stay there was no reason not to stop for refreshments.

Just before crossing into Florida you can't miss this joint (thanks for the tip Jeremy!).

"Flora-Bama"

This bar appears to have been destroyed and rebuilt from the wreckage multiple times but we like that!

The beer's cold....

......and the oysters are fresh!

Yum!

Next up.....beautiful beaches, a cave, some missing manatees (and creepy vultures), and Disney World!!