St Joseph Peninsula SP, Port St. Joe, FL, 162 mile jump
The rain diminished over night but continued to spit small showers in the early morning. My meditation was facilitated by wonderful birdsong, the cardinal and the mockingbird serenade held my attention and made the 20 minutes seem like 10. Penny did a walking meditation through the woods and out to the beach. We both felt transcendentally alive so I played Beethoven’s Ode to Joy for breakfast.
Our jump today was only 162 miles, but much of it was 45MPH, so Suri estimated 4 hours. It actually took 6.5 hours due to purchasing diesel ($2.39), groceries, and a lunch break. US Highway 98 took us SE along the panhandle coast through a variety of tourist towns. Between the tourist towns commercial interests were springing up, poorly timed stop lights about a mile apart created the need to stop and go repeatedly. Then there were long stretches through the Tyndall Air Force Base of 45MPH, but there were few intersections.
We were looking for someplace to stop to stretch and eat our PB&J sandwiches; I was looking for a church parking lot on the highway. After we left the AFB, Penny spied a sign for a county park, so we turned off the highway and immediately saw a sign for St. Rita’s Catholic Church. We laughed at that “coincidence” and found the church parking lot. It was tucked into the trees just off the highway in a very nice setting. We ate our sandwiches standing up and watched a cardinal and a blue jay foraging amongst the trees and down on the ground.
Shortly after that, we encountered a number of towns in the Panama City area. St. Andrews was one of them; we stayed there last year. From what we saw these towns were struggling. Lots of businesses closed or run down; I don’t know of a hurricane to blame. Times are tough for a lot of people while others live the high life. The disparity is obvious and sad.
We arrived at our destination a little after 5PM EST. A lot like Ft. Pickens, St. Joseph is on a narrow white sand peninsula in some places only 200 yards wide. It makes one feel pretty vulnerable; a Tsunami could roll over it like a speed bump. But we don’t need to worry about that!
The campsite was difficult for me. Narrow lanes with trees on either side made it hard to swing the 22’ truck around to get the trailer where it needs to go. But we managed to get it done. Then we followed the crowd of gray haired snow birds across the boardwalk (across for our site) to the beach to watch the sunset. After dinner, we took a blanket out to the beach on which to lie while we gazed up at the Milky Way. Using an app on my phone, we identified Venus (really bright) and Mars over the western horizon. We even saw a shooting star. What a day! Glory be.