Month: March 2025

Exploring St. Marks

Fort St. Mark remnants/museum, St. Mark State Park, FL

[Carrabelle Day #6 2025-03-04 (Mon)]. Today we headed to the St.Mark’s area, which includes both the historic old Spanish port city/fortress and the surrounding National Wildlife Refuge. Since we needed a few things at the Wal-Mart in nearby Crawfordville we stopped there first.

St Mark’s the city was the site of a port and fort (San Marcos de Apalache) the Spanish established in the 1600’s. Located at the confluence of St Mark’s river and the Walkulla river where they flow into the Gulf of Mexico, it may be the 3rd oldest surviving settlement in North America. Today it is a very small city, mainly a marina and a few restaurants, grocery store, and a State Park at the site of the original fortress. We walked around both the city and the State Park.

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St Mark’s City and State Park

Next we headed to St Mark’s National Wildlife Refuge. We visited here once last year and hoped to get photos of the historic lighthouse (again) as well as some wildlife. Wildfire smoke and clouds did not lead to good light for the lighthouse, but the sun did peek out a bit towards the end of our visit and we got a few nice wildlife shots.

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At St. Mark’s National Wildlife Refuge

One last walk and in for the night!

Settled In – Carrabelle Beach

The sun rises over Dog Island this morning.

[Carrabelle Day #5 2025-03-02 (Sun)]. We’ve definitely settled in. Mark headed to the beach for sunrise photos while Lyn & Tucker did some serious Sunday morning sleeping in (as they usually do). We went into town for a few things, including charcoal so that we could use the outdoor grill at our site to cook a steak today. Lyn took a load of wash to the laundry room here where she could crochet and chat with fellow campers. Wrapped up with the now usual long walk on the beach at sunset. Just a nice quiet Sunday, tomorrow we plan on heading to St. Mark’s National Wildlife Refuge located about an hours drive east of here.

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A few photos of our day.

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Sunset walk.

Boardwalk to the beach at sunset. One of my favorite images of the trip so far.

Carrabelle Beach – Jeep Day

Lyn’s dream finally comes true!

[Carrabelle Day # 4 2025-03-01 (Sat)]. Today, after years in the making, Lyn finally got to drive along the Florida coast/beaches in the Jeep with the roof panels off. We drove around the city of Carrabelle then east about 10 miles along the coastal highway to Lanark. We spent some time driving around Lanark, which was mainly small, older homes, many made from cinderblock. Then we headed west along the coast to about 15 miles west of Carrabelle, just enjoying the view.

Lanark FL. This is a home in the middle of town. Doesn’t look like these folks could afford eggs but they could buy Trump paraphernalia. Unfathomable. Makes me sad to see, but it’s everywhere here (just like rural WI). These poor folks are the victims of decades of Republican propaganda.

This morning we did a walk up the coast to a lighthouse park where a Saturday “country market” was taking place. Very quaint, nick-nacks, some photography, and baked goods. We got some lemon scones from a nice couple from Crawfordville. The round trip walk, including some back roads, was about 2.5 miles.

Crooked River Lighthouse – Location of Saturday County Market

Country Market at Crooked River Lighthouse and Museum

In other exciting developments today we successfully hooked up to the sewer port at our site and dumped our black and gray water holding tanks. Whew, glad that milestone is behind us!

Today started with a walk to the beach at sunrise

Carrabelle Beach – Moving Day

Our view for the next month.

[Carrabelle Day #3 2025-02-28 (Fri)]. Lyn reserved a site here for the entire month of March (there’s a fairly large discount when renting a site monthly), but we arrived 2 days ago and had to setup in a different site until that site was available. So we relocated today. It’s a nice location with a view across the road to the beach.

The highlights of the rest of the day were afternoon and evening walks on the beach. I’ll just end today’s blog with a few photos.

Lyn and Tucker in their natural environment.

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