Moving Day … Celebrated with a Glorious Sunset

Fort Pickens Campground — Gulf Islands National Seashore (GINS), Florida
Temps: Lo 39F / Hi 57F (4C / 10C)

We woke up to cold temps again this morning — really cold — but we were comfy cozy in our home thanks to being connected to the 50A pedestal for the adjacent site. So glad we spent the $$s to purchase a long 50A extension cord way back when — we might have been in for a propane night otherwise.

Mui bided his time until 9:00a before he walked over to the host’s site to find out the plan for the day. After conferring with the “brown shirts” — as Judy fondly refers to NPS staffers — the host returned with news. The work ticket had been processed, but the timeline for the repair was unknown and could be several days. Staying put in A14 was not an option, because A15 was going to be occupied by campers beginning today.

We were given the option of moving to A26, a stand-by site reserved for disabled campers, or go to a stand-by site in another loop. Although A26 seemed like a good option at first, the possibility that we might have to move out of it once the A14 pedestal was fixed did not sit well with us. So, we hopped in the car to check out the other loops.

Do you believe in kısmet? We do; and today’s forced move falls into that category. I don’t remember why we dismissed loops B-E out of hand when we stopped by the campground last September on our recon trip. But we did, and it turns out that was a mistake. Driving through the loops today, we found this section of the campground to be much more to our liking — probably because the lack of short trees made it seem brighter and more spacious.

Taking the recommendation of the campground host, we opted for C29. It is adjacent to the bathhouse on the driver side, but big bushes and trees offer us plenty of privacy and hide the foot traffic. On the passenger side, we have twice as much space separating us from our neighbor as we did in A14. We feel that we landed in a better site for sure. Even the 4G connection we’re getting with our Millenicom mi-fi (Verizon service) is better here (not that it was bad in A14).

Site C29 — we like it even better than we did Site A14.
We won’t get sunset alerts from here, but we just might see the sun rise instead.

Clockwise from top left:
looking head on towards C29; looking to the right from our site; lots of space behind
the coach (we have our own shortcut to the bathhouse); view from our windshield.

The move itself was easy — we don’t have a whole bunch of knick-knacks scattered around the motorhome. I think it took me about 10 minutes to get the inside ready for the short-distance move. Since we were driving by the dump station anyway, we took the opportunity to empty our tanks again — not that there was much in them, but every drop counts when you don’t have a sewer hook-up — heh heh he! By noon, we were having lunch at our new site. And then it was time for some fun.

The sun had warmed the temps nicely, so we decided to take the trikes for a spin and ride over to Fort Pickett. We had to bundle up against the light windchill, but it sure felt good to be doing something fun on what turned out to be a beautiful winter day. There’s no bike path, so we had to share the road with cars, but traffic was light and we encountered just a few vehicles along the way. It would be a different story in the summertime, of course.

A trike ride on a mostly-deserted road … what fun on a sunny winter day.

The trees are a testament to the devastation storms have wreaked on this barrier island.

A pretzel tree (not really) catches my eye; a body of water draws me into the landscape.

Of course no trike ride on this sunny day would have been complete without a stop at the beach. We returned to the scene of the crime, where Mui — drawn irresistibly by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico — went swimming in his shorts last September (post here; scroll down). In fact, that was the day we made the decision to return here as soon as we could. It really doesn’t matter that it’s too cold to swim now; just being here and seeing these waters again — well, we’re in heaven

Summer outfits have been replaced by winter layers, but it sure feels good to be back ...

… on this beach, which is named for the nearby Battery Langdon (1923).

The sand here is easily mistaken for snow, salt, or sugar … it’s that fine and that white.

We returned home around 3:00p, put the trikes in their garages (blue tents in the collage above), and headed over to the Lowe’s in Gulf Breeze to run an errand. We could not have timed our return to the coastal road leading to the campground better had we planned it. We got to enjoy one of the most beautiful sunsets we’ve ever seen … such a riot of yellows, oranges, and reds over the Gulf of Mexico … it looked like the sky was on fire. And it all started out with tinges of pinks and lavenders over Pensacola Bay ... a symphony in pastels. I’ll just let the photos speak for themselves; every one of them was absolutely worth the bone-chilling cold we had to endure to get the shots.

Memories to be treasured to be sure.