October 26 to November 6, 2016—Gulf Islands National Seashore at Fort Pickens Campground
The Appalachian Mountains end about 220 miles north of here above Birmingham, Alabama. The mountains have been eroded down to their hardest elements, quartz and granite. The erosion from these deposits tumbles down the Alabama River and enter the Gulf of Mexico as fine white sand. The beaches here are as white as any you will find and finer than sugar. It is fine-grained hourglass sand that squeaks when you walk on it. I had expected the Gulf of Mexico to be a brown, inert body of water but here it is as aquamarine as any beach in the Keys. The wave action is enough to attract surfboarders. Add in the white sand and this is one of the finest stretches of beach I’ve ever seen. Lots of life in the gulf, too. Schools of fish swimming nearby, the occasional sea turtle, blue crabs in the surf.
The Gulf Islands National Seashore encompasses long stretches of the barrier islands that extend from the panhandle of Florida to Mississippi. We are in the part adjoining Pensacola Beach. Loop A of the Fort Pickens campground is the smallest of the camping grounds here, maybe forty sites set amid live oaks stunted by salt and wind and lack of soil. I had reserved it back in April so we have the roomiest site if not the shadiest. Around every corner is a little clearing that looks ready-made for filming a scene from the Bible with the twisted live oaks standing in for olive trees. The gulf and the sound are both a short walk away. Fort Pickens is about two miles down the road. Forts are the oldest structures in Florida and elsewhere because they are so massive and, with the invention of rifled artillery in the Civil War, became obsolete almost overnight. They were so vulnerable that no army tried to defend them so no army felt compelled to attack them so they pretty much survive intact.
We are in full beach bum mode. Take a hike or a bike ride, go in the gulf, make dinner, a couple drinks before bed. Rinse and repeat. The Blue Angels flight team is stationed at Pensacola navy base across the sound and practice overhead frequently. Quite the sight. I wouldn’t get in my car to drive to an air show but I enjoy watching the six planes practicing their immelmans, power dives, double farvels, barrel rolls, etc. And the jet engine screams are out of this world. If I were an enemy combatant and experienced a formation of these suckers coming at me I think I would take up another occupation.
There are a few armadillos here and they snuffle about as if they own the place, brushing against your leg under the picnic table, knocking things over in their single-minded pursuit of the maggots that fall crawl out of the live oak acorns after they have eaten all the acorn meat. Can there be a stranger-looking critter than the armadillo?
