Ah, my first two campground stops of 2023! The original plan was to stay a week at each place and then head on up to Georgia to do some exploring. Well, plans are made and plans are changed when you’re a vagabond…
Two things happened within a week of each other that threw my nicely lined up plans into the air, and when everything landed, well, I wasn’t going to Georgia as originally scheduled. First challenge was finding someone to replace the power outlet on my Alto. Long, sad, complicated story why, so let’s just say I don’t feel comfortable doing electrical work like this. Thanks to Texas Trailers in Gainesville, FL for getting me in on very short notice and doing a stellar job of replacing the outlet. I also got a new power cord. Lesson learned? After several years of plugging and unplugging the power cord, it gets loose. And loose is bad. If you camp in something that uses shore power, check your power cord and replace it if it’s not really, really tight when you plug it into the power outlet.
Once the power woes were sorted (although it took me a while longer to get the battery monitor back with the program), I still had to deal with the fact that my truck cap window was broken. Ugh. I didn’t break it; the repair place broke it while they were fixing a dent in my truck while I was in Chicago. It was going to be a three-week wait for the new window, so I kept the two weeks of my plan and headed out to explore the Florida Panhandle.
Coe Landing County Park (Leon County, FL)
First stop: Coe Landing County Park, just west of Tallahassee on Lake Talquin. This is a very quiet spot, even the daily fishing boats in and out of the boat launch don’t make all that much noise. The sites are well-spaced, and half the loop has lake views. Not much hiking right in the campground, but there are spots you can drive to and hike around.
The noisiest thing in the campground was actually the rooster who paraded around the campground and decided when sunrise was each morning. Which was apparently 4:30AM the week I was there. He does stop after a while and then I’d go back to sleep till *I* decided it was morning.
The lake provides some beautiful views if the clouds are right and so I had fun taking photos almost every day. Except for the weekend, the campground was only half full so not much commotion except for that day they replaced some big electrical box and had six trucks and a dozen people swarming the site. Ever cautious, I unplugged my Alto before they started and then waited till they were all done and dusted before I gingerly plugged back into the grid and watched the surge protector check that everything was good (and it was).
The last evening, I went out for a walk and realized there were hundreds of turkey vultures overhead, riding the wind currents as the sun set. Absolute silence, just the graceful motion of birds soaring in the air, just above the tops of the longleaf pines. It was magical and I watched them until they rode out of sight. I was the only one in the campground that witnessed it; taking my walk fifteen minutes earlier or later and I would have missed the entire show.
Newport Campground (Wakulla County, FL)
About 30 miles south of Coe Landing is another little county campground, not as quite but it did have full hookups at my site, so it seemed like a fair trade. The road next to the campground gets busy during the day, but it quiets down at night that I wasn’t bothered. It was cold, though, and rainy, so I didn’t spend a lot of time outside, either. Oh, and the people next to me had one of those outdoor TVs on the side of their rig, which they seemed to need to be on even if they weren’t actually watching it. Some people just need background noise, I guess.
The road to the St. Marks Wildlife Refuge visitor center and lighthouse is right across the street from the campground, so it was an obvious place to visit. Yes, it would have been much nicer if they hadn’t been doing controlled burns in the refuge, but I understand the need for it, so I just tried to be where the low-hanging smoke wasn’t.
There was a boat launch right next to the campground so I waited for a warm, sunny day and then launched my Oru Lake for a spot of exploring. Being a weekday, there wasn’t much traffic and every single boater slowed way down to avoid creating a wake, which I appreciated, as we exchanged hellos. Saw a blue heron, a great egret, and a few turtles, but other than that, the wildlife was mostly hiding out where I couldn’t spot them. Still, a paddling day is better than a non-paddling day anytime.
All too soon, it was time to hitch up and get back to Gainesville to see about getting the cap window replaced. I’d been driving around for two weeks with the auto version of cling wrap on the back of my pickup, and I was definitely ready for that to be gone! Little did I realize it wouldn’t be a simple thing. But that’s a story for another post.
I hear it’s hot in Florida. And it’s raining here tonight.
But the sun’s gonna shine tomorrow. And I’m gonna do alright.
Elton John
PS: I LOVE your photos! That sunset pink…oh my….do you take your camera out in the kayak?
I take my iphone13 in a waterproof case that has a strap long enough to hang around my neck and tuck into the top of my lifejacket.
These both look like great campgrounds, though I think I’d like the first one more. I camp in a tent so full hookups wouldn’t be an advantage to me. Do you ever worry, when you’re on the water in Florida (or anywhere in the South) about alligators (or crocodiles, I can never remember which live where)? I always assume that they’re in all the water there. We have a house in AL and though I’ve never seen them there, they are in a neighboring lake…so odds are they’re in our lake too. I’ve started to not want to go swimming off the dock!
Thanks for the virtual quick trip to the panhandle.
I enjoyed seeing you at lunch in tallahassee
You have captured North Florida well
In the images
I always look forward to seeing your outstanding photos. All of these are wonderful, but the almost silhouetted stand of trees is breathtaking.
I never tire of your water/reflection shots. The surprise was the pool under the big tree. But the rooster store my heart (photo not his morning reality).