Wednesday, February 6 Grayton State Park

Wednesday, February 6

We are in Santa Rosa at the Grayton State Park. Arrived here yesterday afternoon, after a nice three hour ride from St. George's Island. The state parks are all so different. Here we have sewer hookups, which are so nice!!!!! There is also a laundry here, which we took advantage of yesterday to do two loads. Not everything dried, so the inside of the camper looked like our backyard in Pannaway Manor , when I was a kid. Its all good, and we have clothes for the next week.

Hopefully, we will finally be able to put on bathing suits and head for the beach, although right now it doesn't look like it. Its 8:58 on the computer and 7:58 on both of our phones. Looking at the map, there is a time zone change around Mexico Beach, and our phones changed at that time, but the computer did not. Also, watching television last night, we were getting channels from two different zones. Very interesting.

Just turned on the television, and sorry folks, I won't complain about the weather here; just heard about the weather up north.

This is another small park, and we will have to drive to the beach, we think. We haven't ventured out that way just yet. There is a town, and seems to be shops and restaurants to take advantage of, just from what we read. The sites are large and covered with fine crushed stone. We won't be bringing sand into the camper. On the down side, the sites are closer, and there are no trees, so we have our awning out. This is the first time we have been able to do that, and it feels good.

We'll write more once we check out the area.

Back from a trip riding around in the area, and having lunch at Stinky's. We heard about Stinky's from folks at St. Georges Island who are from Alabama. Haven't mentioned them yet, but will get back to them after talking about today. I can do that, Russ just fixed me a margarita, and I have been sitting in the sun for the past hour or so.

This morning we drove the truck up to the beach. Not a long drive, I think Russ measured it at about ½ mile, but we didn't know how far it was. The beach is beautiful, but very few shells. Also, looking both to the left and the right, we could see huge building both ways. We walked east for about a mile and got to the end of the state beach owned land. The sand is not as easy to walk on as on St. Georges...its much softer. Met more people walking than we would at St. Georges, but we do have to share. Walking back we were able to find a couple of shells and many, many pieces of sand dollars. None whole, but if they were, the dollars would be about 5 inches across. We'll try to find some as the week goes on. When coming back across the boardwalk (crossing the dunes), we met a couple from Missouri. They are about 900 miles from home. It was another interesting conversation. Its fun to chat with folks from other areas, and to learn about places they have been, especially the one's we will be interested in visiting. And they mentioned quilt shops. After travelling around the area, this afternoon, we sat outside on our site and enjoyed the breeze and the sun. Tomorrow, weather is supposed to be rainy, so quilt shops here we come.

So, the folks from Alabama. The last night we were at St. George's, Russ was outside and heard music.

We went for a walk to see where it was coming from and it was a few campsites down from us. It turned out to be a couple camping in an oversized van (my description), towing a boat-not a big boar, but a boat. He (Linwood) was playing an accordion, and his wife (Jean) was playing a washtub, with pole and Russ said wire. Interesting folks. They are from someplace in Alabama, couldn't tell you what town, but 250 miles from home. They follow the music festival circuit....whatever that may mean. But they camp anywhere, the cheaper the better, and Hardee's is a good place to camp. They were down Key West several years ago, and a police knocked on their window in the middle of the night, to ask them to move. There's an ordinance that people cannot sleep in their vehicles in Key West, so they moved to Hardee's. They had so many stories, I think that's where they slept that night. They were great folks, and they are the ones who told us about Stinky's. Good choice, and I have leftover salad for tonight. So that's it for tonight. Hope you are all enjoying the winter weather, we are.