Friday, March 13, 2026

Fort Pickens National Seashore Park, Pensacola Beach, Florida

 We had not camped at Fort Pickens which is just an hour and a half away so we headed to Navarre and took the beach route stopping at Peg Leg Pete's for a late lunch. We sat at the bar overlooking the water and enjoyed a fried catfish dinner. We headed straight to our campsite and then found the nature trail that took us to a battery and then on to the fort. We did a beach walk back stopping at another battery before finding our way back to Loop A campground, We enjoyed a quiet dinner listening to the birds at our campsite.

Our campsite at length and height restrictions



View out of the battery





On Saturday morning, we took a shower, packed up and stopped at the dump station and then took our coffee and muffins to the Pensacola Beach East parking lot. We met up with the local Audubon guide for a hike across to Sabine Point, We came across a dead manatee pulled up on the beach and horseshoe crab shells, We found out they are dredging and the beach is great shelling at this point in time but we had to hurry home. We enjoyed walking across the mud flats at low tide and saw tons of shore birds and it was great to have our guide show us all the species on the spotting scope. We headed back in a hurry as the crowd did the bird count. We had perfect weather and an enjoyable beach camping event,


View from Sabine Point

Beautiful great blue as all the other were little brown birds at a distance


Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Florida Caverns State Park, Marianna, Florida

 We are on a mission to stay at new to us Florida State Parks so we took advantage of the Bay County Audubon Society and horticultural bird and plant hike on Wednesday at the Florida Caverns, We drove the two hours to reach the visitor center at 1 pm on Tuesday for our 1:30 pm Caverns Tour. It was a beautiful sunny day and our tour guide Steel did an excellent job of showing us the caverns as well as pointing out two bats. After the hour tour we took the short Magnolia trail back to the Caverns Cafe for ice cream. We then ended up doing the Tunnel Trail and Ridge trail from the parking lot before heading to our campsite.

Our campsite at Florida Caverns

















On Wednesday morning we took our coffee and muffins to the boat and kayak launch where the river disappears underground. We met up with the Audubon group at the visitor center and ended up repeating the same trails at a slow pace listening to the birds and admiring all the plants in bloom. After the hike we drove to the Blue Hole Picnic Pavilion for a picnic lunch before heading back to the campsite and packing up to head home.

Boat and kayak launch


Mist on the spider webs



At the visitor center built by Civilian Conservation Corp


More plants seen than birds








Bats in tunnel cave

Tunnel cave exit




Butterflies too