St. Joseph's Peninsula, Grayton Beach and the CIA

We left Cedar Key prepared to tackle the mountains of Florida and travel north and west along the gulf coast.  The corners were deadly!  Seriously, there were actual signs warning of dangerous curves on the two corners we went around.  And the hills so steep we took the following picture:

 Could a driver from Florida actually handle a hill?  I don't know!  But I am sure that there would be warning signs.

 We passed a non-descript building with a parking lot in front that had enough room to park the truck and trailer.  We pulled into the parking lot to park and make a sandwich.  Not twenty seconds later, a truck pulled up with two men demanding to know what we were doing.  As we explained that we were merely making a sandwich, we noticed that the facilities were surrounded by military type barb wire and the vehicles in the lot had federal government license plates.  They advised us to please leave when we finished making our sandwich.  The building had a sign that said "General Engineering", but none of the trucks said "General Engineering" and I don't believe that we would have been investigated so quickly if the people inside were only designing a new federal bridge.  It is pretty obvious to me; we found a CIA outpost.  But then we noticed non-descript vehicles following us all day.  These cars and trucks looked ordinary, but we knew better.  They followed us through Apalachicola and all the way to St. Joseph's Peninsula State Park where we camped for a few days.  We tried to act normal, but that is particularly hard for us!

Apalachicola

                                                  

St. Joseph's Peninsula Beach

Dunes.  Walk on them and you will get a ticket!

Fishing Fleet in Apalachicola

Salt marsh at St. Joseph's

     The very northern part of the Peninsula is the State Park.  It sits between the Gulf of Mexico and the bay between the Peninsula and the mainland.  In the middle, a salt march flows through.  There are two campgrounds in the park, and one appeared to have suffered a forest fire.  We asked when, and learned that it had experienced a "prescribed burn".  We saw several other such burns in the distance while we were there.  The beach is a spectacular white crystalline ribbon draping the edge of  large dunes.  It runs for miles down the peninsula. Outside of the park there are many houses being built and other fairly new houses.  While the place appears to be growing fast, it is nothing like the other mass developments we saw in Florida.  If I had the money, I think I would be buying one of the houses.  We walked on the beach and on several trails in the park.  We had a wonderful Valentine's Day meal in Apalachicola and fantasised about opening an art gallery in town.  Maybe in my next life!  We did however, have to ask one partying group to quiet down at night.  I think they were actually CIA agents acting like noisy revelers.

We drove northwest along the Gulf of Mexico through Panama City and on to Grayton Beach State Park.  Most of the coastline is fronted by tall condos and hotels.  Grayton Beach is another very long white beach with a coastal dune lake behind the dunes and campground on the lake.  (There are only two places in the world with coastal dune lakes; Florida and South Africa.  You never know what you will learn in a day!)  The towns near Grayton Beach are made up of only new looking buildings, streets and houses.  All the lawns are green.  All the boulevards have flowers.  Even the cars all seem new.    While walking in the park, I saw two women in their sixties fishing in the lake, and then was quite surprised to hear a police-type radio talking and the ladies replying.  I knew it!  The agents were still following us!  Really, we only made a sandwich!

Mike enjoying the beach

Only a few people even used the beach.

       The beaches of the Gulf are the most beautiful I have ever seen.  The temperature was in the high 60s and low 70s and the skies were clear and sunny.  What more could you want?  Thank you Florida!