When we left The Villages for good, we headed north and had a couple of days to enjoy before we met up with my brother Dan, sister-in-law Amie and niece Audrey in Santa Rosa Beach during their spring break. This meant we headed to Tate’s Hell.
The Apalachicola National Forest and its surrounding area had some camping options, but Tate’s Hell offered one that I couldn’t pass up: a site all by itself, on water, that was reservable and cheap. Mike had to take some work calls en route so that meant that I got to drive during the pouring rain portion. The drive was a little slow, but otherwise uneventful, other than we had some good reminders of how much money we would again be putting into the gas tank.
We got up to the panhandle and I started rubbernecking, looking at all of the houses on stilts right by the shore. We made our way into the Pine Log State Forest to find our campsite and found it to be lovely other than a fair amount of garbage thato was strewn about (which Mike cleaned up). We were in for a couple of windy days, so parked the trailer in a way to provide something of a wind block and then enjoyed the last bit of warm temperatures combined with sun that we would have for a while.
We headed out the next day thinking we would just drive around. We drove through Apalachicola and then made our way to Saint George Island. We drove down the skinny barrier island, again enjoying looking at all of the houses on stilts. Here, it was clear that a lot more money had been put into them, some being three stories tall on top of stilts at least two stories tall. Oof, lots of stairs. There was lots of beach access, so we parked and enjoyed some time on the beach, me in wool layers and Mike with his shirt off.
We then moved on to Sand Pond Campground. Dan and Amie had rented a house in Santa Rosa Beach and we wanted to be close, but were unwilling to pay for a site in an RV park in the towns. Sand Pond was about 40 minutes away and worked well as a home base.
We wound up staying at the house a couple of nights and Mike worked there, making the most of bad cell coverage and iffy wi-fi in order to allow more time with the fam. We got one good day at the beach: warm water, slight breeze and the adults enjoyed watching Audrey have a blast in the sand and waves.
The highlight of our stay (beyond time with family and a very nice shower at the house) had to be our dinner at Blue Mabel. The menu had looked good and we were able to eat out on the porch in a spot all to ourselves. We ordered a bunch of different things to share and all of it was amazing. Crab cakes, pork belly, smoked brisket dip, and Brussels sprouts. Shrimp and grits, grouper, and lemongrass thyme creme brulee. And all of it ended up being accompanied by a view of someone being escorted out of the restaurant by the police in order to be questioned right in front of our table. Yes, they were in the parking lot and quiet, but it caused a stir and went on forever. Not the best accoutrement to an absolutely delicious meal. Mike wound up getting our meal for us for about half price when he had a chat with the manager about the whole deal (a couple of employees seemed like they were trying to pump us for info).
Dan and Amie were a little taken aback by people’s disinterest in wearing masks the few times they had to be indoors in public. While we had seen people mostly masked in The Villages, the governor of Florida had just lifted restrictions throughout the state and we weren’t too surprised by people’s throwing off of safety measures. It was one of the many reasons we were looking forward to getting “away” again, especially as we were a ways away from getting the vaccine as out-of-staters everywhere we would be in the near future.
