It has been quite some time since I posted anything to my blog. For obvious reasons, my husband and I have not been doing any travel. But, we are currently in Florida for an extended bit of time, riding out what we hope will be some of the last months of the Covid threat. My Mom and Dad are also here staying with us. We are on Alligator Point, Florida. Part of Florida’s Forgotten Coast. It is calm and peaceful here. Not as warm and sunny as southern Florida, but it sure beats winter up north! From time to time, when we have an interesting adventure, I will try to post.

Yesterday, was warm and sunny, one of the first such days we’ve had. We ventured out to nearby Bald Point State Park. Rob and I had been here once before and seen quite a lot of shore and marsh birds, so we expected to see them yesterday. Such was not to be. We literally saw 5 birds (1 tall white one -too far away to identify) and 4 pelicans sitting on a spit of sand. So, not much in the way of birding for us, but we did enjoy watching mullet (fish – about 12 inches long) jump out of the sea in the sheltered curl of water near the fishing pier. The water here is quite tea stained (looks brown, just like a cup of tea) but at the very edges we watched hermit crabs amble along in the their stolen shells. When our shadows fell on the crab it would stop and retreat into the shell. Not sure how it could see the shadow, since most of its body was inside the shell even when walking around, but I guess it’s eyes must be located on the small part that is exposed. We also saw one bigger blue crab scuttling along in a little inlet. They are always so funny; looking like they are walking sideways.

Bald Point State Park has both beach access and trails through the brush/forest (not sure what to call it). After we’d had our fill of watching the sea life, we set off on the trail through the woods. The beginning of the trail was filled with scrub oaks, many covered in Spanish moss. I just love Spanish moss; it is so quintessentially Southern. As we walked, the terrain turned more toward low growing saw palmettos and bare, dead tree trunks. It was like a tree graveyard, beautiful in a sort of creepy way.

From various vantage points during our time at Bald Point we could see 3 distinct smoke trails off in the distance. They have been doing prescribed burns of forest land in the area, so we figured these were just 3 more. It seemed like a good day for it. As we walked toward the beach at the end of our walking trail, I caught a pretty cool shot of the smoke making a wave-like pattern in the sky as it blew eastward.