North Florida

When you're done exploring this page, Click here to visit my new video page of North Florida.

12/28/04 – Today we drove to Tallahassee where we spent the night. It was a 5 hour drive with an hour for dinner at Applebee's. We spent the night in a Comfort Inn.

12/29 – Wednesday – our first stop this morning was Florida Caverns National Park. We arrived just in time for the 10AM tour of the caverns, lead by a Park Ranger. This was Richard’s first time and I hadn’t been there in over 30 years. It hasn’t changed much. This cavern is still one of the most active I’ve ever visited and also one of the most prolific. It contains almost every kind of formation there is in a compact space. The tour lasts 45 minutes.

From there we visited Torreya State Park. We didn't tour the Gregory House (1849) but did peak in the windows.

The torreya pine grows only in 5 places throughout the world and this is the only place in the US that it grows. We hiked along the Apalachicola River and saw several cannon embattlements used by the Confederacy during the Civil War.  We did not see full grown torreyas because they were a 7 mile hike from our trail and we just didn’t have the time. We saw the young torreyas that had been planted near the entrance. We also crossed into the Central Time Zone.

Toward the end of the day, we stopped briefly at Dead Lakes Park which was readily accessible. Spotted a pileated woodpecker here and many dead cypress in the lake. Lighting was nice this close to sunset.

 We reached Port St. Joe just as the sun was setting, rushed to the waterfront area, and photographed a beautiful  sunset over the Gulf of Mexico. Then we checked into the Port Inn, a 1907 restored hotel, and Richard rented the Presidential Suite for us! Sounds expensive. It was the largest room in the hotel and it was $110 a night! Cheap by today’s standards. That room would easily have been $350 to $500 anywhere else. It was a beautiful room, wonderful hotel and excellent experience. Dinner was at a nearby restaurant that was up scale Italian called The Sunset Grill.

12/30/04 – This morning as we were checking out, the hotel clerk asked if we were into shelling and I emphatically said yes. She sent us to a  site known only to locals.  We spent two hours there while I combed the beach and found Van Nuys cockles, sand dollars, augers, olives, jingle shells, and Richard found a Florida fighting conch. Nice variety. Oh. And lots of pieces of branch coral – the small variety.

When we left this area, we returned through Port St. Joe to get to the St. Joseph Peninsula State Park. Food was a problem on the peninsula. No restaurant for lunch so we bought some snacks and munchies to hold us. The interesting aspect to this park is the sand dunes on the beach. There’s supposed to be a lot of wildlife as well. We did see a few varieties of birds and hiked about 4 miles around the park.

We dined in Apalachicola at a lovely restaurant near the water, Caroline's Restaurant. From our table, we watched boats coming to port, pelicans and gators in the distance. After walking the town a bit, we drove on to try to find a room for the night. Leaving Apalachicola toward Wakulla Springs, motels became scarce.

Tonight as we crossed the Apalachicola Bay, I had to pull off the road and grab the cameras. Behind me, setting over the Bay, was an even more spectacular sunset than last night. Another car apparently had the same idea on the other side of the road.

The night was spent in a 1940’s bungalow called The Island View Inn. It had an AC unit, but no heat. This one was $60 a night and the only motel available for 40 miles in either direction. During the summer season, the rates escalate to $112 a night! The good part – it butted up to the Bay, which is probably why it was so expensive. This morning we were up early enough to photograph a sunrise on the eastern side of the Apalachicola Bay. 

12/31/04 Friday – we reached Wakulla Springs State Park too early for the first boat tour and walked around the springs photographing the nearby birds. The boat tour departed at 10:30. It was fabulous. There was a proliferation of wildlife to be seen – gators and turtles sunning themselves, flocks of wintering black vultures, an eagle, widgeons and gadwalls (ducks), little and great blue herons, grebe, moorhens and coots, ibis and snowy egret, anhinga and  cormorant. This is the largest natural spring in the United States, if not the world. If you look closely in the first picture, you can see a fish jumping. The park ranger said these were mullets, which are bottom feeders, and he thinks they are jumping to clear their gills. There was quite a bit of activity while we were there. 

Notice how the green heron blends into his surroundings in the last picture above.

From Wakulla we drove past a small country store where I wolfed down two hotdogs (very limited menu – hotdog or BBQ), then on to St. Marks Lighthouse. The history of the lighthouse is that it was the only thing left standing when a hurricane blew through destroying the nearby town in 1843. It was fought over by both North and South in the Civil War. It’s now a wildlife sanctuary and another area to view many types of birds – red-breasted woodpecker, glossy ibis, teals (ducks), and grebes are common.

From here we tried to visit the Wacissa River, hoping to rent canoes (it was recommended in a book we have) but it was primitive and no rentals to be had. The area was fast succumbing to hydrangea plants. The cost of cleanup is greater than the supply of resources.

The day ended with our return to Orlando in time for New Year’s Eve and to watch the ball drop at Times Square on TV.