Gulf Islands Natl Seashore / Ft. Pickens / Pensacola - Castles in the Sand

Gulf Islands Natl Seashore     228-230-4100

Fort Pickens  1400 Fort Pickens Rd., Pensacola Beach, FL            850-934-2600

There are fees (recommend buying the America the Beautiful pass for all natl. parks & sites)

        Driving around downtown Pensacola, and the area around Plaza Ferdinand, the park where Gen. Andrew Jackson (later, president) accepted control of Florida from Spain, you are struck by the foreign influence in the buildings. I don't know what you call this architecture, but anyone who's been to New Orleans will recognize the same 2-storys with shops below and apartments above, with covered walkways on both floors. The foreign flare comes from the port of Pensacola having been ruled under 5 different flags: Spanish, French, British, Confederate and American.

Right there at Jordan Valley Cafe (201 S Jefferson St, Pensacola, FL, 850-505-3528) we stopped for spiced potato salad that bummed us out when it was gone. Tabbouleh was delicious and fresh, same for the hummus with pita. Crazy good, smiles all around. That kind of meal.

Naval Air Station Pensacola has incredible visitor attractions, like Blue Angels simulators. Too bad it was still locked down (Feb. 2020) from a shooting incident months earlier. We were definitely on edge after making a wrong turn down the road to the front gate when we knew very well the place was locked down because we'd tried to get in the day before. I'm pretty sure we bypassed a sign saying the base was closed, only because it's a narrow road with no turnoffs. And here we show up in our outsized and unmarked white cargo van. Creepy enough? But the sentries were good to us. Phew.

The day was too cool for Pensacola Beach. We went on to cross the bridge to the barrier isle (why does crossing the water always makes me sing?), heading to Gulf Islands National Seashore. A single road stretches about 8 miles to the western end of the island. You pass rolling white sand dunes topped with brown grasses, but we weren't here for beaches. On the western end stands Fort Pickens, which makes for some excellent wheelchairing around.

Pickens' big guns guarded the coast from the 1830s until 1947. The ruins are a complex of brick, cobblestone and concrete. It's not one for the postcards, but was a playground for me. I plowed my wheelchair all over this place. In it, around it, through it, Fort Pickens was mine. I couldn't get everywhere: there are a lot of chambers and a whole top-level of parapets and outlooks I couldn't access. (Which bums me now that I write about it.) There are plenty of rough, bumpy sections, and narrow, inaccessible doorways. But listen, I was a kid here. I went everywhere, investigating stuff, on my own. I want one of these in my backyard. I went until I was exhausted! Mab and these chill people we met were kept coming at me with different nooks and areas for check to out. After a while I told them, Enough, stick a fork in me, I'm done. And that is what I my search is for.

Built by slave labor, including Geronimo.

We wandered to the fishing pier across the road. Plenty of people, and as you scan through the crowd, wait, go back - there, standing perfectly still like a floor lamp was a tall, spindly seabird, about 3 1/2 feet tall. I swear he averted his eyes when we spotted him. He was undercover, in plain sight.

See him? Undercover, baby. 

        The 10-year-old next to us said, "He's been here the whole time I've been here. If you don't watch, he steals bait. I went to my cooler and when I came back I think two of my fish were gone."

Smooth operator. 

Everglades National Park - Flamingo Campground & Visitor Center

We returned from this lifetime kind of trip around the Gulf Coast right before the coronavirus spread over the nation and our minds. I'm posting this anyway as a diversion and hopefully it will help somebody months from now. This was an odyssey filled with magic moments, and we feel so lucky to have done it when we did, and when we could have. I think everyone understands by now: do the things you want to do, don't wait. - Wheelie

Park HQ: 40001 State Rd. 9336, Homestead, FL, 305-242-7700

Website: https://www.nps.gov/ever/index.htm

Accessibility Features: https://www.nps.gov/ever/planyourvisit/accessibility.htm

Park Map: https://www.nps.gov/ever/planyourvisit/maps.htm

Flamingo Visitor Center 239-695-2945

The Everglades is a massive national park in the vein of Yellowstone, with several visitor stations spread many miles apart. For instance, from our entrance at Ernest S. Coe Visitor Center some 30 miles southwest of Miami, it took an hour's drive southwest to reach Flamingo Campground inside of the park. Most of the terrain on the way looked like tallgrass prairie, not the marshes we expected after driving this way over the coastland bayous on I-10. During our stay we learned that the Everglades was the first park established not for its physical beauty but to preserve the area's plant and animal life. Its success in that regard is argued forever but I'd wager it's good it's here.

Flamingo Campground

We spent two nights in the Everglades Flamingo Campground. Pull-through, level pad, 30 amp, with water and dump station. Ours was an ADA site and easy to get around. It came with a really cool picnic table with one side extended out so that I could drive underneath. Huge site, and surprisingly not a lot of campers considering that the rest of Florida was jampacked. The campground is ringed by trees and we saw a beautiful sunset here, but of itself not much to look at. Only a few hundred yards behind us was Florida Bay, which is basically the entire submerged tip of Florida, and a few hundred yards away from that, the Flamingo Visitor Center. It's always a delight, the air is just different, staying inside a national park. I get the night-before-Disney-World flutters in my stomach!

Flamingo Visitor Center

The next morning at Flamingo VC, five minutes away, right off the bat we made the first big mark on our checklist: a hulking crocodile lay 40 feet away across the water from the visitor center. He was so large we could not even see the whole of him in the tall grass, and of course a couple of kayakers poked their noses in until someone at the center called a warning. Then right overhead in a light fixture a family of ospreys kept their nest, with the little ones just visible. Nearby on the other side of a footbridge, a large croc floated eerilt still below. Now you're reading that right: these were crocodiles, not alligators, because at Flamingo the water is saltwater. Further north and east you'll find freshwater and the alligators that the Everglades is known for. But according to a ranger, this area of the Everglades is one of the few places you can see this type of crocodile in the lower 48.

Also at the same visitor center swim the manatees. All day people tried to glimpse these shy mammals, but at 3:30 PM they really turned out and we got to see them up close. A ranger said it happens daily. The manatees surface right up to the marina looking for food, algae. Mab was the first to see one. We wondered aloud if we might, and she looked down and she and the manatee were staring eye-to-eye! Then of course the rest of us ran over and scared it away. But now there was no shortage of sightings, near and far. The rangers said they're as friendly and shy as they look. They're definitely chill. Mab just brought me a vodka and tonic as I write this up, and the olives floating around in the bubbles remind me of how the manatees would pop up and just kind of drift down again out of sight.

Flamingo VC

A big disappointment was the charter boat run by a concessionaire that was not wheelchair accessible. We never got an explanation why, but another concessionaire at Gulf Islands Visitor Center the next day was mighty surprised to hear - because they do offer accessible boat tours at Gulf Islands. At Gulf Islands there are concerns about the tide and the weather affecting the boarding of the vessel. Think you crossing a ramp between the peer and the boat, which is what this is, and the angle has to be doable. But at Gulf Islands, most of the time they get it done. We and the Gulf Islands concessionaire let park officials know our feelings.

Accessible trail along Florida Bay

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Florida Bay

Also at Flamingo we heard a talk by a ranger about gators and manatees. We could pick his brain about finding manatees and flamingos (Mrazek, below). We also enjoyed a traveling exhibit table with skull and wood specimens, as well as the knowledge and people skills of the parks worker (I don't think she was a ranger) who not only spooled out her expertise but also handled a couple of rude characters and still left smiles on everyone's faces. She just impressed me and was fun to talk to, which is a common experience with NPS staff.

Mrazek Pond

To reach Mrazek Pond was a half-hour drive. Mrazek is a unique site, the pond lined with birds, scores of them, probably hundreds, including ibises, pelicans, anhingas, egrets, turkey vultures and roseate spoonbills (flamingos). The sights and sounds filled us, and the dozen or so birders who were there in full kit (outdoor wear and chairs, photographic equipment, telescopes, video, computers, etc.), with a thrill that we did not want to end. But the afternoon was getting late.

We learned late in the day about the Anhinga Trail. It was must-see. The daylight was ticking away.

Anhinga Trail

Turns out that the trail is part of Royal Palm Visitor Center, which is all the way back a couple of miles from the park entrance at Ernest S. Coe VC. It was spontaneous: we were making this up as we went along. The drive did not seem that long, but yes, by the time we arrived it was the last minutes before dark. In that light, Royal Palm and its parking lot with spacious ADA slots looked like new, but we headed straight back to the trail, which also was in outstanding shape.

Anhinga really is must-see, especially from a wheelchair. It was a joy taking this thing, a boardwalk built just above a grassy swamp, smooth and straight and flush, with high railings for folks to lean on safely as you look all around you. When we were there the rapidly fading daylight severely compromised what we could see, so we were taking this thing pretty darned fast yet I felt nothing but secure. With the sounds and smells and sensations, it felt like we were in nature here. There were things splashing out there, animals calling, insects waking up to do the night shift. On the next night was a scheduled nighttime flashlight trail program with a ranger to show you exactly what's out there. Wish we could have done it. But we couldn't and we didn't care, we loved it anyway. Anyway, the boardwalk looked and felt new and sturdy and seemed to be built with almost a CCC-type quality, if you know what I mean. Definitely do this during the daytime though.

By the way, Off! repellent totally works. We'd heard there were mosquitos here, and that's no lie. Duh, swamp, right? Anhinga Trail was maybe the second time in my life I'd ever asked for Off! It's hard for me to wash it off, and the critters usually don't fool with me too much: if they do, they get MS. Bah! But on the Anhinga Trail at night, no, mosquitos are another kind of crazy. At least three were eating my face when Mab sprayed me. Saved! It was strange feeling them everywhere around me even if they weren't sinking their fangs. At one point Mab flicked on the mini-flashlight so we could read a sign, and we both gasped. Swirling around my head like a halo was a constellation of frenzied skeeters, trying to break through the force-field. Wow, the things we do in the dark.

And get this: as we were leaving, a minivan was unloading. It was two elderly couples, with both guys in push wheelchairs. They told us it was their second time to Anhinga, it was so good. But they didn't bring bug spray! What?

Anyway, we let them use ours, and then we drove to the camper in the dark. We were going to sleep hard. It was a great day.

Next, Shark Valley and the Ten Thousand Islands.

Live Your Someday Now

Having a good time following this family of full-time RVers. He's paraplegic and the whole family and their trip reports are very can-do and fun. They have a couple of YouTube channels. This is a man to talk to.

Meanwhile I'm writing up our latest odyssey. Just got back and we're digging out from the unfinished business while we were away. You should have seen the bundle from the post office. Hut-hut, HIKE!

But we'll get this routine down. We got to, because we're already itching to go.

They stand vigil over the river - Vicksburg National Military Park, Vicksburg, MS

On a high bluff overlooking the Mississippi 60 miles from Poverty Point Historic State Park is the site of one of the nation's most important battles. During the Civil War, the river was the lifeblood of the U.S., and whoever controlled Vicksburg controlled the lower river. Here the river winds like a snake, and the Confederate fort at Vicksburg, perched on a high bluff and stacked with artillery, could obliterate anything going by. Both sides needed Vicksburg.

The Union, led by Ulysses S. Grant, laid siege, pounding the fort with heavy guns. We already know that the Confederates had the artillery to hit back. Both sides dug in and let loose, making hell on earth for weeks on end.

This is going to be a picture-heavy post. That's because there are no words to say it like we seen. In the park you drive a narrow loop a couple miles long. Everywhere you turn you see monuments to the detachments, commanders and the states who fought here.

This batch, the Illinois Monument, modeled on the Pantheon in Rome

The place is hilly and green with moguls: these are the entrenchments and bunkers where the cannons fired from. You drive a long, narrow loop. Only a couple hundred yards over those low, rolling hills you can see the cars of tourists on the other side of the loop. Those cars are in enemy territory. These boys firing the massive iron balls were practically on top of each other. This realization, and the sheer number of dead, are the things that affected me most.

You settle into a somber, respectful silence as the battlefield tells the story more viscerally than all the books and documentaries you've ever seen. Honestly, I would have liked even more help visualizing where the actual walls and other landmarks stood - but the experience is profound.

The visitor center is easily accessible. By itself it did not strike me as a great museum resource, but there the Park Service offers a number of free or cheap resources like guided or self-guided driving tours to do. We spent three hours max, and covered some 80 percent of the park, all from inside the car.

National Park Service: Vicksburg National Military Park

Rollin' on the river - New Madrid Historical Museum, New Madrid, MO

As a kid in Illinois, part of the folklore that got drilled into my head alongside Abraham Lincoln and the Great Chicago Fire was that the biggest earthquake in American history did not take place in San Francisco or anywhere near California, but in southern Illinois - a tremor so strong that it rang bells in Philadelphia and made the Mississippi River run backwards. Later on I found out it was really centered just south of Illinois, in New Madrid, Missouri, and occurred in 1831, but in my mind it was still a monster on a par with Godzilla. The New Madrid earthquake was something I've always wanted to learn more about, especially having driven through the area several times over the past few years. It killed me that there was never enough time to pull over and check out this storied place. But now, with the RV, we can.

New Madrid lies in the bootheel of Missouri, flat river lowland prone to flooding, and it was here that I first saw cotton fields. (The lady at the museum told me how in the days of Big Cotton, one of the growers was so powerful that he nixed his land going over to Arkansas and arranged for it to go to the Show Me State instead, creating that crazy, lazy bootheel hanging there like an appendix, that makes you scratch your head whenever you see it on the map.) Present-day New Madrid has a few thousand people and its own levee on the Mississippi River, which you can see and drive upon in a beautiful river outlook that is also a part of the Trail of Tears, where Cherokee refugees waited in the cold for ferries to bring them across from Tennessee.

Gorgeous Mississippi River overlook on the levee

Less than 100 yards downhill stands the historical museum. It is only two rooms, and then a second floor. No problem getting in with the wheelchair, but there is no elevator to the upstairs so what they do is show you a photo album of the items there. This tiny place really couldn't raise the money for an elevator, I think, plus the woman who showed me the pictures told some pretty good stories that the folks going upstairs weren't hearing. The earthquake exhibits are all on the ground floor. Otherwise everything is flat and no surprises for the chair.

Upstairs

Half of the museum is about the earthquake, and the rest is mostly Civil War and Indian artifacts, plus some 19th-century household and heirloom items that were contributed by the oldest families in
town. It was all interesting, and we spent an hour and half.

If you're interested about the earthquake, it hit during a winter night and turned everyone out shivering in the cold as they endured the aftershocks. There were three quakes stronger than 8.0 on that first night (scientists now lump all three into one rolling terror) and there was a 8.0 earthquake the next day and another in the days following. Each one of them was a monster quake, and then there were hundreds of smaller ones for months afterwards. It changed the course of the river, split open the earth and left features in the landscape still visible today. (At least one of them is doing duty as the friendly neighborhood sand trap at a nearby golf course.) The cool thing is that there is a New Madrid fault to this day, although you can't see it because it's under several feet of caved in earth and sand. But I see a movie coming on here... Paging Tom Cruise and Ben Affleck.

The museum is $5 and definitely worth a visit if you like history. Be sure to check out the Trail of Tears river outlook right up the street.