Gulf Islands National Seashore

March 10-24, 2024

Sunday, March 10, 2024

I am writing this on April 28 as a “catch-up” entry, so it’s more of a summary with some content from my journal at the time. I took around 800 photographs in this time period! Some will be on this page, while I may create another page for additional ones.

Fort Pickens is a part of Gulf Islands National Seashore. It is located just west of Pensacola Beach, Florida. I first camped there in January 2022 for ten days, then again for four days in January 2023. The campground is rather large, divided into five loops A-E. Loop A is its own area, while B through E are in another. The beach is a short walk from either area. It is eight miles of nice sand. There are a few small parking areas for day-use, but I have never found the beach to be crowded. There is considerably more parking available in Pensacola itself, and I think that is where most beach-goers end up.

I arrived from Lake Seminole fully recovered from my bout with Covid. I stopped at Publix and stocked up on groceries. After leaving Pensacola Beach and entering the park, there is a eight mile road leading to the campground. It is all on a narrow barrier island, at times not much more than a couple hundred yards wide, with the Gulf of Mexico on the south side, Pensacola Bay on the north side. The day I arrived the wind was blowing from northwest, white caps dancing across the bay from strong winds, which, based on my previous trips, seem to be the norm on this island. The wind may change direction, but it is often strong.

I did a lot of biking while here, though I do not describe individual days. I rode on ten days, doing about 415 miles in the two weeks here, all of it on the same flat, eight-mile stretch of beautiful, beach and sand dune lined road. This necessitated a daily experience of riding out and back on the same route, which is basically a sixteen-mile loop. The shortest day was 21 miles, the longest was 61 miles. It never felt boring or repetitive. It felt great. The photos can speak to the beauty along the way … it’s a great feeling. Some days I took it easy, other days I pushed myself into anaerobic realms. It all works for me.

This first night here, I went to watch the sunset. It set much farther north than it had been in my other visits, which had both been in January. I had wondered if this would be the case. In January, the sunrise and sunset took place over the water of the Gulf. In March, I learned they both take place over land.

Monday, March 11, 2024

I love to see the sunrise, to experience it. I have done so many times. Each time, it is a little bit familiar, yet it is also brand new. We know what the sunrise looks like, what it is about, the spinning of the Earth and all that it entails leading to a rising and setting sun, as is the case with other celestial bodies, the Moon, the stars, etc. (Link to sunrise photos)

I took one photo (above) that, when I looked at it, surprised me. It was a photo of the sunrise behind some clouds. The surprise was the way a woman and a bird showed up in the photograph. They are significant. In fact, without them, the photo is very different. Their presence makes the photo. They were not aware of their presence, of their role in this experience. They were just doing their day-to-day normal activities. A woman taking a walk on the beach at sunrise. A bird flying overhead, looking for food.

This is how it is in life. We go about our activities often not knowing our importance. The grocery clerk. The cashier at the truck stop. The man cleaning the bathrooms at the campgrounds. The couple walking their dog on the bike trail.

During the height of the Covid pandemic, we (society) grew to have an appreciation for some of the people who did these somewhat (wrongly described) mundane tasks. They were, in fact, putting their lives at risk in order to be there doing their jobs. We were thankful.

The cynic may say they were at work because they needed the money. In some cases, maybe so, maybe that was part of the equation. But for many, it was a sense of responsibility. Nurses and other medical professions, nursing home employees. You think they wanted to work, work even overtime, in deathly dangerous environments, for the money? They worked out of commitment, out of concern and a kind of love for humankind.

I digress. Returning to my point, you are important in ways that you may never know. Someone may occasionally tell you that you are. Let me tell you now, as you read this, that you are important.

I wonder sometimes to myself, and I have mentioned this to people: it seems to me that sometimes photos come to me. Like the photograph of the sunrise today, with the woman and the bird. I am pretty sure it was the woman who walked past me earlier. I thought to myself, not seriously but resting somewhere in my consciousness, she will be “in the way” of photos I take. I did not think much of it. I would say I just as quickly dismissed and did not think that again. Five minutes later, I am taking a photo, and she shows up in it as an important part of it.

That night had a fantastic sunset. There were very few clouds. It was a golden beauty.

There was a couple to my left, sitting in comfy beach-chairs, looking out over the water. There was a pair of sandals to their right, about 30 feet away from them. The zebra art design contrasted with the sunset-colored sand. I took several photos of the sandals.

To the right, just like last night, there were more people walking than to the left. There is a section of sand that reaches out about 200 yards down the waterline, and there were few people in that direction. I headed that way. I passed two people walking along the water’s edge. One was wearing a red shirt and overalls. He had long gray hair and wire-rim glasses. He looked unemotional. His face blank, maybe tired. The woman looked younger. She was walking barefoot, meandering in and out of the water, while playing a wooden flute. It sounded so right, peaceful, meaningful. I want one. I would like to be able to play something like that.

After I passed them, I was pretty much alone down there on that section of sand. There I was able to just breathe in the salt air and the moment of watching that huge, warm ball of fire sink lower and lower. There was a ray of light on the water directly in front of me at first, streaming out directly from the sun. I took lots of photos.

Also, one morning, there was a woman far down the beach ready to jump into the Gulf ...

When returning, at the end of the boardwalk, I met up with the young couple from Pennsylvania I had talked with earlier at the campground. I had stopped at their campsite, telling them I liked the set-up they had, a platform tent in their Toyota pickup. The guy said he loved it. I had not realized it, but at least some of those platform tents have mattresses built into them.

I asked them if they’d like a family photo. They had an infant with them. They said yes, that would be great. I took four photos for them. I hope they come out good. I think they were really happy to have it done. If I had not stopped to talk with him earlier, I probably would not have talked with them at the beach. It’s interesting how these occurrences seem connected.

Wednesday, March 12, 2024

This morning, I met the “flute player” couple here in the campground. I talked with her and her partner for about ten minutes. Her name is Deborah Yellowflicker Brubaker. She told me she is self-taught on the flute. She had no experience with it before buying a flute. She has a FB page and a YouTube channel, which I found by using Google. She seemed to indicate she is of Native American heritage. They will be home in time for the eclipse, where they have invited people to come camp on their farm. They have a farm in Ohio, where they hold Native American ceremonies such as sweat lodges. She gave me the name of a Native American flute maker. I contacted him asking about the process of buying and learning. I will look around elsewhere, too. The guy responded it is best to begin with an A flute. It would cost $250.

Later that afternoon, after a 90-minute bike ride and a shower, I talked with the guy next door to my campsite. He has a silver, half-height trailer, tall enough to sit in but not stand. He pulls it with a Dodge pickup truck. Has a canopy set up with a propane fire ring that he says throws a lot of heat, uses it often, cheaper overall than wood, certainly cleaner and easier. No wood to cart around, and he loves the on/off switch if he has to step away. Makes sense to me.

I had to change sites again today, and he had been reading a book when I pulled in at 1PM. I said hi at the time. He was still reading when I returned from my ride. So, I asked what he was reading. He’s reading a book about a woman who leads a “stone-age skills” camp in the northwest, Oregon I think he said. They have to live on, survive on, skills that were available in a historically accurate way. They forage for food, kill what they can, squirrels and mice, and just have to do it all. This turned into a conversation about Native American cultures. He said that even as late as the arrival of Europeans, Native Americans were basically still living in the stone age. Think about that.

Anyway, our talking moved on to the origins of some tribes and cultures.  He told me some were from Asia into Alaska; others were from Europe into northeastern America. We talked about Native American cultures from the perspective of white American cultures thinking in terms of Christianity, and all of its adopted precepts, as being the truth about life. He mentioned some cultures where a man might have several wives. It was done out of responsibility because there were so many more women than men in the society. They believed every woman should have the right to have a child, and if there were not enough men around, then the practical, and perhaps needful in order to keep the tribe fully populated, was for a man to have multiple wives. Christianity would say this is sinful as well as disgusting. They’d all be condemned and called heathens.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Today I met a couple from Australia. I approached them as they had a white Dodge Promaster similar to mine. They have been living in the United States for twenty-five years. They seemed to be on a longish, if not permanent, road trip. They had spent the winter in Florida. They were adept at free camping on city streets as well as out in the county. It seemed they had the attitude they could park for a night almost anywhere. They said if I went down into Florida, I should see a Space-X rocket launch, that it was amazing. It had never occurred to me to do that.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Yesterday at sunset, while walking back to the campground, I noticed someone sitting with what at first looked like two little dogs. I soon saw that one of them looked different, then determined it was not a dog at all, it was a chicken! She (Hallie) had three chickens with her at the beach. They are rescue chickens. They have cross-beak. Their upper and lower beaks do not line up properly, so they need to be hand fed. One of them was blind, too. Their names are Roxie (a dark brown Calico Orpington), Honey (a light brown-rust Olive Egger), and Lunar (a greyish Lavender Ameraucana). Hallie feeds them. Hallie’s mom, Michelle, told me Hallie is the Mom of those three. Meanwhile, back home they have 38 other healthy chickens, four dogs, four cats, two rabbits, an aquarium, and a lizard. They have a house full of animals. Michelle has built a home for the chickens. There are three separate places, as there are three flocks, each with its own rooster.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

I was able to reserve my 14th night here, and that will complete a two-week stint at Gulf Islands. I will not have had more than three nights at any one site, but it is easy to switch. It also means I still have eight days and nights here. I move to A loop today. I’ll be there three nights, then D loop four nights, E loop one night.

I want to note that I have never seen so many seashells on a beach as I am seeing on my walks these days. There are lines of shells all along the shore, for miles literally: small shells, nothing more than maybe about an inched and a half wide, some broken, many fully intact. It’s interesting, nice, photogenic in many ways.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

I went for a walk to the other campground, circumventing Loops B, D, E, and C. The road was damp due to the afternoon rain, but now that it had stopped there was plenty of activity. The things I noticed the most were there were many empty campsites and there were lots kids on their bikes. It is so great to see so many kids riding bikes and scooters. All ages, some seeming to be three years old or so. Small children, bikes without pedals and the smallest of scooters.

There was one family with six scooters spread out on the ground in the morning. They had a pull behind trailer. The Dad was a long-haired guy in his 30s. All of the six kids had long hair. I think there were five girls and a boy, but I am not certain. It seemed to me some of the kids were mixed race, based on skin complexion and hair type. I loved seeing those kids playing.

Today there was a boy riding and enjoying going through puddles. He purposely left the road to go through a section where the rainwater had gathered to make a little pond. He was riding laps around loop B and D in a counter-clockwise direction. He was clearly having a fantastic time.

On my walk back to Loop A, I crossed paths with two women, who were returning from the beach. One of them asked a boy, who was walking a bicycle past us, if there was something wrong with it. He said the chain fell off. She fixed it, telling me she had been a bicycle mechanic for twenty years. You just never know. They have a cute little teardrop trailer. It has blue flowers on the side, like the flower-power stickers of the 70s, that’s what they remind me of. We started talking and continued as we walked back to the campground. It was an interesting and fun thing. They had life in their eyes.

I stopped to meet the new camp host. She just arrived for a four-month stint. She seemed quite excited about it. She has a small tear-drop trailer that she seems to love. It really is small. She pulls it with an older Infinity QX30. The trailer has an 8” full size memory foam mattress that she says is great. She has set up a tent and a canopy adjacent to the trailer, so she has a comfortable living area right out the door. There is not much room in the trailer for doing things other than sleep. I don’t think she could even sit up in it, but maybe she could. We talked for about ten minutes about it, and we talked a little bit about ourselves, too. She retired two years ago at 60 and lives not far away in Louisianna. She’s a camp host,

Monday, March 18, 2024

I went down to the beach with my white plastic chair, to watch the sunrise, the waves coming in, the occasional bird flying by. To feel the sun … I sat in my chair there, on the edge, just before the sand dropped steeply to the water’s reach, each wave inching closer.

Later, back at the campground, the little kids are riding their bikes around. This is a different set of kids from the other day. There is a large family, camping with a tent, a few sites away. The kids seem to range from about four to maybe sixteen. One boy was riding no hands. Another gave me a high five as he rode by. It’s the same kinds that were playing in the miniature Live Oak the other day. Entertaining and heartwarming. That’s how it is.

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

I have been sitting out in the sun here, at site D21, listening to the birds and admiring the trees. The sky is completely blue today. I see no clouds. I have been reading some of The Women, the new Kristen Hannah book I bought, and already, just a couple chapters, ten pages or so into it, I am emotional and ready to cry. Is it me, or is her writing charged with emotion? Am I simply empathetic to her characters? I am sure there is real life here, even if she does not have a model for the family she portrays.

I am in “tent city” here in D loop. There are a few other vans, a small tear drop trailer, but it is mostly tents. I saw the new camp host, Linda, the woman I talked with last night. I expected her to be more talkative today than she was. I had read into her last night that she looked forward to talking more. She spoke few words today. She was making the rounds, updating reservation sheets on the posts at each campsite. Lat night when we talked at her site, she was dressed in her pajamas, a light blue one-piece, flannel stretching down a little pat her knees. It had dolphins or whales on it. Her trailed peace sign stickers and things like be kind to animals. She seemed energetic, talkative, Earthy and natural. Today she was friendly, but quiet. Maybe it was a work persona. She said she’d be seeing me as she drove away in her little golf cart type vehicle. Since I arrived at 11, two families have occupied their sites, one next to me and one across the one-way asphalt camp loop road. They both have families. The one behind me has a mom and dad and three kids. They set up two tents, placed five fold-up camp chairs around the campfire ring.

There are a variety of tents. Red and grey, multi-green, multi-blue, green and white, orange and grey, blue and white, blue and grey. Most are taller than my backpacking tents. I’d say one could stand up in most of these tents, there is no need to go down on hands and knees to enter. They are not like the little backpacking tents with which I am so familiar. Picnic tables are covered with water bottles, camp stoves, lanterns, wood, sleeping bags and mattresses.

There are many Live Oaks and two kinds of pine trees. One is tall and slender, with branches and needles in the top section only, the other is medium height with branches spreading broadly all the way along the center trunk. There are some palm trees, too. It is sandy soil with sparse grass, enough to hold the soil in place, but to call it a lawn would be inaccurate. 

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

I decided to not go to the beach tonight for the sunset. It felt so cold there last night with the wind the way it was, blowing strong, southwest, off the water. Instead tonight, I walked over to Worth Battery. One can walk up several sets of stairs (58 total on four levels.) I watched the sunset from there. It seems to be the highest point in the park.

There were some amazing clouds, their formations, textures, and colors created a dream sky. I was up there about thirty minutes, watching those clouds and the subtle changes as they are carried on the wind and the apparent motion of the sun. I was glad to be here, not at the beach. It was warmer tonight, and the wind was not as strong as last night. I was not feeling cold.

As soon as the Sun descended below the horizon, I negotiated the steps and walked back towards of the campsite. Then suddenly I stopped and said, “Wait. Take a walk on the trail. It would be perfect. Surround yourself with nature instead of campers. Walk between all those tall pine trees. Maybe see some wildlife.”  I began walking on the trail that leads from the campground to the actual fort (Fort Picken is an actual fort built in the 1800s and used in WWI.) The section I was on is the last mile (or the first, depending on one’s starting point) of the Florida National Scenic Trail, an approximately 1,500-mile-long trail from Fort Pickens to the other terminus in Big Cypress Recreation Area, which is just north of the Everglades. It is part of the National Park Service.

The sky with its lightly painted wisping clouds was a great background for the tall pines silhouette. It was so beautiful. I walked as far as a bridge that spans a small river running between the Gulf and the Bay. I was about to take some photos when a woman I had met earlier in the week came walking across the bridge. She has a 19’ Class C camper, which is a short length for a Class C. When we had talked the first time we met, I asked her how she liked it, and she said to come by the next day and she would show it to me, but she was not there when I went back. Now she was on the bridge. We talked and walked the mile back to camp together.

Friday, March 22, 2024

I walked to the beach for sunset, using the Florida Trail to Loop A, then walking over to the beach partway and planting my chair. I sat there watching the sunset and the rough surf. I had never seen the surf this rough in the times I have been here, and the water has never come so close to the dunes. In some places it was only about 10-15 feet from the water to the dunes. Tides are amazing.

Saturday, March 23, 2024

I was up early and took another walk on the Florida Trail, out to the bridge and Fort Pickens. On the return trip, I heard an unusual bird sound. I use my Merlin app frequently, listening to the many and varied songs our feathered friends provide. When I hear something unique, I make sure to turn it on and see if it is something new for me. This time, as I turned it on, I looked to my right, and up in a pine quite close to the trail there was a Bald Eagle! It all happened fast, as I looked at my phone and Merlin confirmed what my eyes were seeing. I was able to take some nice photos of it, too. The dominant bird along the trail seemed to be Ospreys, but there were Red-tailed Hawks, and a Great-horned Owl, too.

Later … I did a nice walk this afternoon. Used the Florida Trail to get to the beach road at Langdon Battery, then walked another mile down the road to where the road is practically on the beach. There is a narrow stretch of land between the road and the beach, less than fifty yards. I took off my shoes and walked in the water where the waves could splash up to my knees, walked all the way back to the parking lot at Langdon. It is amazing how few people are here on the beach, hundreds of yards walking solo, others visible but quite a way down the beach.

Later, my friend with the Class-C camper stopped by. She said she was going to feed the turtles later. I told her I’d like to see that, and she said she would stop by later. She came on her e-Bike, but we walked the whole time. She had a gallon-sized container of turtle food. There was a label on it, something one can by in a store. I had no idea such a thing was available, and I am not sure it is intended for turtles in the wild. We talked about a bunch of things. She has been on several cruises, one with the goal of seeing an eclipse, she loves to see eclipses, and loves being out west. She bought her RV in 2020, after Covid began, and has been working remotely for a good deal of the time since, while traveling. She wants out of “working for the man,” though I was/am not sure exactly what that means. She has a house in Georgia and was about to buy property in the mountains near Smokey Mountain National Park. She takes lots of pictures, loves seeing animals, and travels with her cat. She wants to create a space in life for “giving”, as compared to “experiencing” life. She feels that right now, she is living and collecting experiences. She wants something more, or maybe something in addition to that, and it involves “giving” back and contributing or helping the less fortunate in some manner.

We heard a Great Horned Owl on our walk back!

Sunday, March 24, 2024

It is a “cold” morning, 52, with somewhat of a steady breeze. I’ll go watch the sunrise. I might skip riding, or maybe ride when I arrive at Davis Bayou later today.

My tea is ready, then to the beach.

Back from the beach, I experienced another beautiful sunrise. There were two other people within eyesight, not very crowded.

I am pondering to go to see the eclipse on April 8. I can reserve a site about 90 minutes away, so I did for now and will evaluate as time goes on. I’d drive up there, near Land Between the Lakes NRA, near Paducah, KY. I’ll be at Canal Campground, Land Between the Lakes NRA, April 7,8, and 9. Will determine later as to staying longer. Meanwhile, time to leave Fort Pickens for Davis Bayou, which is in the Mississippi section of Gulf Islands National Seashore.

Beach Gallery

Bicycling Gallery