Camping in Anastasia State Park

Tent camping in Anastasia State Park, North Florida - Photo: Still Gravity.
Back to the tent for a week in a state park close to the city of St. Augustine - License our images here.         

Anastasia State Park is a bike ride away from the action of old St. Augustine, Florida. In winter, camping here is a delight, especially for the absence of insects and the lonely beach.

One night, a smart raccoon assaulted our cooler in the gazebo. The unit felt from the picnic table and woke us. We ended giving the troublemaker a big scare. This worked well. It didn't try again. 

The hike to Cape Francis in the St. Augustine Inlet was nice. We found many birds on the Atlantic shores pushed by strong winds and furious waves. There were also illusions of ships sailing on the sand - the beach hiding the inlet. 

Boat sailing on sand in the St. Augustine Inlet, Florida - Photo: Still Gravity.
Someone was sailing on the sands of Cape Francis.        

The city with its old castle, old houses, and... old, old, old smell of Spanish times, was a daily destination. We rode our bikes there and got food at some restaurants. 

This was our fourth time here. Once again visiting The Fountain of Youth with its tale of a Ponce de Leon fighting age, the Big Cross of Menendez de Aviles, and the St. Augustine lighthouse with its ghostly whispers. 

The oldest house of St. Augustine, Florida - Photo: Still Gravity.
         The oldest house of St. Augustine. 

But this time we also visited new places. We went to Fort Mose - the escaped slaves fort from 1738 -, the small Fort Matanzas near the dying place of 200 French soldiers executed by the Spaniards - "matanzas" means slaughter in Spanish -, and the world first oceanarium - we learned a couple of things about dolphins at Marineland Dolphin Adventure. 

Driving north from St. Augustine, we found Guana Tolomato National Preserve and the brown sands of South Ponte Vedra Beach with the remains of a boat destroyed by a hurricane.   

Boat wrecked in South Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida - Photo: Still Gravity
Broken by a storm.        

Busy week enjoying the simplicity of tent camping.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chekika: Forgotten spot of Everglades National Park

Image
During our last visit to Chekika ( map ), we found closed roads and dilapidated buildings. This was our fourth time here. Little by little, nature is coming back. Wilderness taking over what was always its property.           The closed entrance to the Grossman Hammock -  License our images here .  Everglades National Park closed indefinitely the Chekika Day Use Area in 2013. They claimed budget constraints. One year later, Chekika was on the news when a juvenile Nile crocodile was removed from the area - the animal was captured in a canal north from the Grossman Hammock. Two others were caught in 2009 and 2012 further to the east. You know the script with invasive species: they escaped or someone released them.  The Everglades already have the mighty Pythons running wild. I don’t want to imagine the River of Grass ruled by “man-eaters” crocodiles that can reach up to 17 feet. That would be madness. 
»

Google search and the little blog

Image
Many small websites are going dark like the sands of the desert at nightfall -  License our images here .   Little blogs are dying. They are jailed in a dark and remote dungeon of Google organic search, the non-index dungeon. The mighty gatekeeper, like Saturn , is devouring its children. Betrayed for money, the good old-fashioned blogs are the collateral damage of their "helpful" content update. Long gone is that 2004 when Loren Baker wrote: Google likes Blogs. Blogs do well in Search Results Listings on Google. This is because Blogs contain fresh content and are richly interlinked, despite their relatively small audiences. Some would go so far as to say that Google over-represents Blogs. (Source:  What if Google didn't like blogs? ") That's ancient history. A jump to 2022 shows a different picture. According to Sandy Maguire: The Internet is dominated by a few big websites. Out of social, the amateur opinion is vanished. (Source: " Why Is the Web So Monoto
»

The last hike before the accident

Image
Cheaha Falls: A tiny waterfall in the mountains of Alabama -  License our images here .    After an easy mile of hiking through the Chinnabee trail, we reached the little waterfall.  The water was pretty low for a summer. We expected something bigger. A real waterfall, not a shower. But anyway, it's a cute waterfall with a tranquil pool at its base. We didn't swim, but it's said that many locals do.  Last picture of C before the accident.  The best part was that we were the only ones there. C seated on a big flat rock and grabbed a snack from her blue backpack.  She loves these quiet places. Immediately, she got lost into herself surrounded by the sounds of nature and the smooth hammering of falling water over ancient rocks. Who knows what she was thinking. I didn't.   We left for another day the hike down to Devil's Den Falls and Lake Chinnabee. There was time for them. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. We had some days to spend camping in this forest .  How coul
»