Now, if you haven't caught onto this trend yet, my uncle is big into state parks. So we saw a lot of them on this trip...in fact, we see a lot of them on every trip. But seriously, we went to NINE state parks during our week in FL. That's every single one within 'reasonable driving distance' (i.e. 100 miles) of the hotel.
But that's okay, because they can be really lovely places.
Our first stop of the day was...Grayton Beach State Park.
Lots of ocean and sky...my kind of scenery!
The guys wandered off down the beach and pretty soon the only people in sight were my aunt and I. Good thing we enjoy each other's company!
Ocean and sky....
...and ocean and sky...
...and ocean and sky...
...there's a THEME to this post...do you see it??
YES! It's the Ocean and the Sky!
Good job.
After wandering up and down the beach for a while we found a handy dandy bench and decided we would sit around and wait for the guys to turn up.
My aunt got a little bored so she doodled in the sand.
But if you look closely, you'll notice something else. Her feet are dangling WAY off the ground. Because here's the thing about the bench we found...it was oddly massive!
Even I, who am significantly taller than my aunt, had trouble climbing onto this bench. It was really tall, and way too wide to be comfortable so we had to sit really far forward on it. We could both sit facing each other, with our legs crossed under us because it was so wide. We were fascinated with this silly bench because it was just so ridiculously oversized.
So here's my tiny aunt on a gigantic bench. She's got a good two feet of clearance between her toes and the ground.
And here she is trying to get off the bench...which took some serious effort!
Almost there....
And she's down!
And yes, I was giggling the entire time.
The walkway back through the dunes was also ridiculously tall...she was standing on tip-toe just to look over the rail.
Who planned this place??
Anyway, on to our next destination which was: Henderson Beach State Park. (Told you.)
Oh, but I would like to take a moment here in the middle of this post to give a shout out to the good folks who work for the Florida State Park Service. You guys keep these places amazingly clean and organized. And full props for having well maintained, not scary bathrooms! They were even heated, which is rare.
Anyway, back to Henderson Beach.
Another attempt at being 'art-y' with my pictures.
Sanderling tracks
There was a naturally occurring tidal pool right at the edge of the beach. It did interesting things to the waves and I got a little fixated on it...sorry.
My aunt loves watching the shore birds, like sanderlings. This one followed her way down the beach so she named it.
Hi there, George.
He even followed me around for a while!
See what I mean? He's still there...over on the right.
Someone had built a really nice little sandcastle on the beach earlier in the day, so I stopped to take a picture of it...
...and got noticed by the locals.
They were disappointed that we didn't have any bread. Cause they'd heard we 'might' have bread...but we didn't.
Sorry, fellas.
Just look at all that blue. *sigh*
That evening after dinner we decided to head down the strip and take a quick look at the more touristy shopping areas on the beach. It was a pretty typical 'open air' mall which had the usual mix of bars and stores but it also had one really major selling point...the Russell-Fields Pier.
The pier, which was the one the guys had walked to earlier in the week, was actually three miles down the beach from our hotel...which explains why they were gone so long! The Pier itself is about 500 yards long, stretching straight out into the Gulf of Mexico and it's a super popular fishing spot...so it's a good thing we were there in the off season.
So we hiked out to take a look at the sunset.
Our hotel IS in this picture...just don't expect me to be able to point it out!
Looking back toward the shore from the very end of the pier.
Out across the water down the shore line....
...and up the shore line.
The most interesting thing about being out at the end of the pier is that there was no noise. All of the sounds you associate with a crowded, tourist-y beach community were gone. Even the waves didn't make noise this far out. There was an odd, almost eerie feeling out there. I called my mom (cell reception was amazingly fantastic) and told her where we were and she was surprised at how quiet it was in the background of the call.
I wandered back down the pier, watching the waves break against the beach from the other side for few minutes.
love and kisses,
- HistoryDiva
No comments:
Post a Comment