We arrived at the St. Andrews State Park's campground and tried checking in several hours early. There were several factors involved with why we had arrived so early. First off, we only had 70-miles between campsites, barely an hour and a half on the road. Next with only a two hour difference between check-out and check-in times, plus an hour more for the time zone difference, there was no way we could spend 3-hours between campgrounds.
Fortunately our site was available for an early check-in and it took us no time at all to get set up on our waterfront site.
However she did go to bed at 9:00PM CT last night when she usually calls it a night at 10:00PM.
Here are a few photos that will look very similiar to last weeks morning photos.
Right after we finished breakfast we decided to brave the Christmas Eve crowds at the local Walmart Supercenter to pick up a few grocery items we'll need for the rest of the week.
When we arrived we were pleasantly surprised to find the parking lot less than half full and the check out lanes were only one or two people deep. Either we beat the crowd this morning, or the fact that this Panama City Beach location is mostly a "beachy" tourist destination made the store seem somewhat just "normally busy" today.
Winter, even in Florida, is not the prime time to visit this park. It's known for it's white sugar-sand beaches and mild surf. It's also a great location to go "searching for seashells on the sandy seashore", try saying that 5 times in a row as fast as you can.
As you can see in the map below the St. Andrews State Park occupies 1200-acres at the tip of a peninsula outside of the highly populated area of greater Panama City. Due to the geographic location of the park, all of the land based wildlife in the area is "trapped" inside of the park.
We had originally purchased tickets on the shuttle for Friday afternoon, but the weather wasn't ideal for being outdoors so we cancelled the trip.
We did manage to get out and go to breakfast the day after Christmas. There's a Waffle House just 2-miles outside of the park's entrance gate.
All week long we've watched from our dinette windows as a family of about a dozen ducks paddle their way up and down the shoreline of the campground. It's fun to watch their butts go up in the air when their heads go down under water looking for something to eat.
At the same time a pair of brown pelicans constantly fly up and down the shoreline about a foot above the water doing the same thing.
Occaisonally a kingfisher bird will fly down out of the tree next to our campsite and stab at the water in an attempt to come away with lunch.
With the constant bird activity, plus large and small boats constantly cruising up and down the bay, there's never a dull moment.
Other than that I only have a few more of Tricia's morning walk photos to share before we pack up to leave tommorow.
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