Pine Lake RV Resort – Fountain, Florida – August 29-September 4, 2016

Monday: travel day! We woke up to 82° and overcast skies. By 9:15 we were ready to hit the road and drive a few miles into Eastpoint, Florida to have 2 new shoes put on the camper, replacing the 2 tires on the driver’s side that hadn’t blown—yet… So, now we have 4 new tires on the ground. By 10:15 we were on the road for a 2 hour drive to Fountain, Florida. Fountain is between Panama City and I-10. We love those 2-hour drives! After we got set up we drove into nearby Chipley, had an easy light dinner at Wendy’s and a quick stop at Walmart.

We spent Tuesday just chilling out. We did do a walk-about through our park, which is located on a small private lake with over 100 active sites and quite a few that aren’t available. (Apparently there was an issue with the septic system being close to the lake…?) The park is quite old, but grounds are pretty decent. It has a small laundry, small club house with a kitchen and dining area. We’ve got full hook-ups, but the WiFi cuts you off after an hour, and there’s no cable.

Wednesday was a day for a bit of sight-seeing. We drove 31 miles to Panama City and nearby historic St. Andrew, where we did a walk-about. (Didn’t want to just to the touristy stuff along Panama City beach.)

St. Andrew has been around since the early 1800s when it was considered just a vacation spot for people from interior Florida, Georgia and Alabama who came to the shores of St. Andrews Bay to swim, wade, fish, and enjoy the cool coastal breezes. 

In addition to light commerce during the days leading up to the Civil War, sailing vessels arrived in the bay to pick up lumber from nearby sawmills, cotton, and other agricultural products. St. Andrews  Bay also supported a small fishing industry. It wasn’t uncommon to see fresh fish being smoked along the shoreline on a daily basis. 

The outbreak of the Civil War brought much of this activity to a halt. Union blockade vessels soon took the place of fishing boats in the bay, and by 1862 the resort community of St. Andrews was all but abandoned. Instead, this area became a center for the Confederacy’s vital salt industry. Massive amounts of salt were needed to preserve meat for the Southern armies; massive saltworks sprang up along St. Andrews  Bay as well as other bays close by. Water from the bays was placed in large boilers and boiled until a salty residue could be collected from the bottoms of the vats. Salt became one of the most valuable commodities in the South and was so important that men were exempted from military service if they worked in the saltworks. 

Numerous raids were made against the saltworks by the Union navy, but they weren’t very successful because as soon as one was destroyed another would be set up to replace it.

St. Andrews Bay also became a port for Southern blockade runners as Union warships shut down larger ports. The blockade runners would quietly slip in at night to replenish badly needed supplies, taking cotton back out with them to sell in order to keep the Southern economy alive.

Since then, St. Andrews s has once again become a welcoming and vibrant area, adjacent to Panama City. Restaurants and shopping bring folks back again and again. Beck Avenue is the main street in St. Andrews, where you can find antique shops, seafood restaurants, art galleries, museums and coffee bistros, and quite a few eclectic shops, as well. Just off Beck to the west is the St. Andrews Marina.

At the south end of Beck Street is Oaks by the Bay Park. A boardwalk leads from the center of the park to the edge of the bay, with observation platforms and benches to sit and rest a while. 

Beside many live oak trees, there are a few interesting sights in the park: Old Sentry, a heritage live oak tree that’s estimated to be more than 250 years old, which means it would’ve been growing there during the War Between the States; and a 4-headed Pindo Palm, which is thought to be the only one of its kind in the world. Plus, there’s the old salt kettle, used by the Confederacy during the War Between the States to produce the badly needed salt.

As we were walking, we saw these. We've never seen a cable barge before. Hmm... And the pelicans carved into an old live oak tree. 

We walked around the town a bit before lunch, seeing the historic St. Andrews Church which was established in 1887, and Azalea Court, one of the only real “motor courts”, where tourists to this area stayed. 

 

Then we had lunch—or a really late lunch, considered “linner”—at Gracie Rae’s, on the water overlooking St. Andrew’s Marina. Wonderful food! We had mahi mahi tacos and shrimp tacos, served with salsa and chips, and French fries. We did not leave there wanting for anything, and even had enough to bring home for another meal. YUM-YUM!

Thursday we visited the Florida Caverns State Park, about 25 miles from our park. The park is a 1,300 acre sanctuary bordering both banks of the Chipola River in Jackson County, Florida. Its primary attraction is the spectacular cave tour that lasted over an hour through ¾ mile of underground passageways and rooms. Some of the passageways were only about 4’ high and 2’ wide. (Suck it in, guys!) Our tour guide, Aaron, was very knowledgeable about the cave and its history, so we came away quite impressed. Some portions of the caves flood during heavy rainfall, especially during the rainy season in the spring, which was evident in the lower portions of the cave. These caverns are unusual for the state of Florida. They were formed over thousands of years, as acidic groundwater seeped into and dissolved local bedrock. As years passed, local fissures turned into holes, and holes into caves. Even though most of Florida’s groundwater erosion formations stopped at the sinkhole stage, some developed into caves. Archeologists have discovered human footprints and artifacts in some of Florida’s caves dating back at least 1,000 years.

In 1935, Dr. J.C. Patterson visited the area where the park is today and, realizing the potential, bought 494 acres at the sight and subsequently led a civic drive that called for the formation of today’s state park. His dream was realized and the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) soon started work building many of the facilities still seen in the park. In March 1937 a government surveyor found where a tree had fallen over during a storm exposing a big hole in the ground. When he crawled into the hole he discovered the beautiful formations that we enjoy today. After this discovery, the CCC continued the excavation and development of the tour cave that lasted to 1942, when WWII broke out. The CCC used only pick axes and hand tools to carve out the passageways, and most of the caves then were barely 2’ tall, meaning they spent much time on their stomachs digging, then transporting the debris out of the caves in 5 gallon buckets. The workers were paid $1 per day, sending $.75 home to their families.

This statue was created to honor the CCC.

We returned to our park just before the rains hit, meaning the beginning of what we could expect from Hurricane Hermine. It rained heavy for about ½ hour, and got a little breezy. Then it all stopped. We had expected to get harder hit that evening around 10:00, but it turned out that we were on the outer western edge of the storm so even though we got a little more rain and wind, it wasn’t serious. Had we still been in Eastpoint, Florida where we were last week, we would have been in the direct path of the storm. Whew!

Friday we visited Falling Waters State Park in Chipley, Florida, the location of Florida’s highest waterfall. Falling Waters is a 100’ deep, 20’ wide cylindrical pit formed by acidic groundwater gradually wearing away the bed of limestone beneath sandy soil.  Throughout the park sinkholes and caverns can be found, although this is the only one that is accessible to visitors. Water drops 73’ to the surface of the water in the sink; the water’s final destination is unknown.

The waterfall isn’t the only interesting sight in the park. During the Seminole Wars the sinkholes at Falling Waters State Park were used as hideouts by Indian warriors. The park is also the site of a Civil War era gristmill, which was powered by the waterfall in Falling Waters. Later, in 1891, a distillery was constructed on the site. And, based only on local legends and a 400-year old Spanish diary, an oil well was drilled in the park in 1919. The well reached a depth of 4,912’ never produced a viable amount of oil, so it was capped in 1921. Archeologists found Indian artifacts in the park in 2007 that dated between 1,000 and 1,500 years old. The artifacts included bits of pottery, arrowheads, and what may be the only cave painting in Florida. 

The park also offers a 2-acre man-made lake for swimming and fishing. There was a sign to watch out for alligators, but we only saw fish jumping—no alligators. We also saw these two beauties: a banana spider and a swallowtail butterfly.

Saturday we woke to rain so we decided to kick back for the day. Dick did ride his motorcycle for about 50 miles in the afternoon after the rain stopped while I did some overdue housecleaning.

Rain hit Sunday morning and kept up most of the day, including lots of thunder. Crazy. We hunkered down for the day, catching up on various computer stuff. And of course, I knitted. Christmas is coming!

That’s it for this week. Thankfully, it was a bit slower than those in the recent past! Monday we head farther west, to Robertsdale, Alabama, near Mobile, for a week.

Stay tuned!

Hugs,

RJ and Gail