St. George Island State Park and nearby places

The first thing you notice as you cross the bridge to St. George Island is the lighthouse.

And the next thing you notice is all the fresh seafood vendors. Nan has experience in that department and I'll tell you the grouper, shrimp, and crab cakes were all delicious.

 At the state park, the beach was wonderful, strewn with seashells.

I learned some more about the turpentine industry along one of the hiking trails.

 Almost all of the pine trees showed the V-shaped scars of resin gathering.

 THistle and I hiked the 5-mile trail through the slough to the beach and back.

Like Moses, Thistle only got to see the promised land....he wasn't allowed on the beach here.

 THe sand dunes are white as snow...or sugar.

 Ripples of clouds over the dunes.

 A lone pied-billed grebe in a pond.

Back to the beach just before a storm front moved in....surf's up!

 Nan, trying to roll this log back out to sea.

 Terns were diving into the surf, but too fast to catch that act on camera.

 This crab was sitting all comfy in the sand until Nan decided to poke at him with a stick.

 Then he got all crabby.

One day we took an excursion to the mainland to tour some historic state parks. This one commemorates the Constitutional Convention, which met in Saint Joseph to draft the first Florida Constitution in preparation for statehood.

 Inside the museum, exhibits portrayed the history of Florida leading up to statehood.

 There was a lot of competition for the location of the convention. 

 The museum even had a Disney-like living-diarama of the occasion. At the press of a button, the figures become animated and you can listen to the discussion.

St. Joseph was becoming a prominent resort town when a series of events precipitated its demise....yellow fever, a devastating hurricane, and a wildfire.

Our next stop was the Orman House, an 1838 antebellum home built on a bluff overlooking the Apalachicola River. Cotton lines the walkway.

Federal and Greek Revival Styles, according to the brochure. The house is now preserved as a state park.

 Behind the house, the remains of a slave cabin.

 A sign about the twenty slaves owned by the Orman family.

How thrilled they must have been when the slave cabin was wired for electricity!

 A look inside the Orman house:....the parlor,

 A downstairs bedroom,

 The dining room, etc.

Meanwhile, back in McIntosh, the sun still rises over my site.

But I will have to say goodbye to my winter site. My site is having problems with electric power, and the owners say they can't fix it, so I have decided to move to a different RV park for the month of January. I will miss my sunrises and the red-shouldered hawk that greets me each morning.