From St. Joseph Peninsula to the parking lot of a Wal*Mart!?! WHAT?

St. Joseph Peninsula was just brimming with wildlife. We no sooner pulled into our spot than the welcoming committee came by to say hello. We looked out our dining room window to see a beautiful, young white tailed deer grazing just feet from the RV with a backdrop of pine scrub and sand dunes and a wilderness splashed with beautiful pink to purple morning glories all opened up and coloring the landscape. Between the morning glories and the soft pink marsh mallows it looked as if a watercolor painter had just been there. The birds were bountiful again… red winged blackbirds, brown headed cow birds, cardinals, blue jays, brown thrashers (normally very reclusive, seemed very friendly at our spot), quail, Carolina wrens, towhees, and many others. Shorebirds like laughing gulls, herons, egrets, sand pipers, plovers, and pelicans were everywhere, too. We even had a few raccoons stop by for a chat. This area we were in also had, for the first time this trip, salt marshes. They are such a vital part of the environment. People in the state of Florida seem to think they are worthless and like to fill them in and build on them. Perhaps one day, they will realize that they provide a buffer for the shoreline during hurricanes and rough storms, a place to process wastes and toxins and buffer the drinking water, a nursery for all the wonderful Gulf Coast seafood they love so much… and leave them alone. Salt marshes are so beautiful. Birds and animals flock to them to eat and cool off and be noticed. The smell of the briny breezes as they blow across a salt marsh cannot be mistaken, are not reproducible, and are so therapeutic to the soul. But I digress. We spent all day Saturday at the beach, swimming in the warm Gulf, enjoying the sparkling sunshine after a rain the night before, and watching fish, ghost crabs and birds frolic amongst us. It was so beautiful; I even got Vincent to swim. Vincent never swims. Vincent likes being near water, or on water in a boat, but in water, no. (In natural, ocean water? NO WAY. There are THINGS in THERE!!!) I, on the other hand, am part mermaid. I could spend all day in the salt water playing with my brothers and sisters of the sea, and I did. Tiny fish nibbled at my toes, ghost crabs walked in front of me foraging for the night’s meals. Vincent, while sitting on the shore, saw forty fish inside of the crest of a wave (yes, the water is that clear!) He said he’d never seen anything like it. We had a lovely anniversary day on Friday the 24th, enjoying a day of napping and snuggling. We made up a new game called “Intestinal Roulette”…the object of the game is to consume the food in the on again off again refrigerator and be the one to NOT get sick in any way. Each contestant picks their poison and eats. It’s a simple, easy to play game. I, as contestant number one, decided to go with leftover Bourbon Street Penne; a complex flavored meal complete with scallops, crawfish, shrimp, and andouille sausage. For extra difficulty, it had a cream sauce and mozzarella cheese. Vincent, contestant number two, took a safer route with leftover encrusted snapper, a baked potato and some sugar snap peas. The baked potato did have an added degree of difficulty, as it had sour cream. We reheated and ate. We both won. That round was a draw. We’d have to wait until dinner when we would both try the fresh, Gulf shrimp that had yet to be cooked. We survived that, too. The rest of the food was non spoilable….so we had to cut the game short. We got the amazing leftovers out at a place called the Sunset Gulf View Grill. It had wonderfully unique, fresh, well prepared food, an enjoyable atmosphere and great service, not to mention a romantic view of the Gulf at sunset. We should have waited and come on our actual anniversary, but…. The meals were bountiful enough that we took half home and enjoyed it again the next day. That same outing brought us to a Piggly Wiggly supermarket, where we bought some rations that need minimal/no refrigeration. We also went to a make your own sundae frozen yogurt place (a la yogurt mountain) called Flip Flops. More of a flop… not as good as YOMO. ..but there was hot fudge sauce, so I don’t think it was all that bad. Then the big pack up came. We put away the remains of the past three days and got ready to roll out of Port St. Joe and into Topsail Hill Park in Santa Rosa Beach, FL. We made a pit stop (where we are still sitting and waiting) to meet up with a guy named Tim who works for or goes by the name “Dr. RV”. We gave him a call in regards to our broken refrigerator. He said he would meet us on Sunday in the parking lot of a Wal*Mart. Here we sit. Here we have sat for the past two hours. I don’t know what time we will leave here to move on to our next campsite, but I am getting peeved that I have to spend the day sitting in a hot, smelly parking lot when there is a beautiful beach side paradise waiting for me. Hurry up, Dr. RV…the day is a wastin’! Pictures from our St. Joe Peninsula adventure will be up in a bit; until next time, “May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.”