This was written 2 days ago, on Monday, when I arrived at the park. There is WiFi, but difficulties piled up, as I will describe in the post. I'll post again about the 2 missing days tomorrow, about forts and beaches and friends. 

This morning I left Jacksonville, but not before I stopped at Starbucks (priorities, right?) and then I went back to my old house in Jacksonville. I parked a little down the road, in a row of yard-care trucks, and walked back to the house. Dear Readers, the back yard was gated, and I chickened out on knocking on the door. I did manage to look through the front door glass to see what I could of the new owner’s changes. It was wonderful. Everything I always wanted to do with it had been done. It was someone’s dream house. Someone loved it. That seemed right to me.

So I didn’t get back there, though I gave Mom a shout-out before I left. Literally. I yelled over the gate at her.  If anyone was back there, they probably jumped out of their skin. 

I took US 1 down to St. Augustine which used to be the tourist highway back in the 50s and 60s. There used to be mostly pine and palmetto forest on the way down, with these cute little tourist motels, twenty rooms strung out in a row like a necklace with the office at one end. I loved to stay in those, and most of our family trips in Florida involved US1 and those little family owned motels. 

They are mostly gone now, though I caught two that have survived the development, the expansion of the Jacksonville metro area down to St Augustine. It’s all strip malls and big box sections and condos. A whole new private airport development. Marble countertop companies and stone yards. Gentrification, Florida style.  It’s too bad, but it’s just another “when I was young” moment, so I have to let it go. 

Once I arrived in St Augustine, I did a quick grocery stop and then headed through the center of Old Town and the tourist district and crossed over the new bridge (the Bridge of Lions is closed for updating, another WIWY) and down the island about a mile to the state park. It all looks very much the same as it always has, restaurants and shops and cheesy attractions. I didn’t look too close, but I think most of the shops and attractions are still open which is a good sign in this economy. 

I go to the park and did the hour of setup and fussing around the site. There are pros and cons to the particular site that I have so I arrange it to be private and still have sun and nice scenery. It’s a little bit of designing your environment on a small, ephemeral scale. I’ve been in lots of parks and rv resorts, but for scenic beauty and privacy, this park, Anastasia Island State Park, excels. I took some pictures, but I was damning the limitations of this p-o-s camera I have. 

These oak tree formations are caused by the constant on-shore wind from the beach.  

One of many paths in the park through the mangrove/palmetto groves 

It has quirks too, and I remembered today that I used to want to record podcasts of rv parks for other intrepid female rv’ers. My main observation: This park is obsessively safe for female rv’ers; in fact it’s completely closed off, and not necessarily in a convenient way. You can’t just walk though to civilization without going all the way back to the front gate and you absolutely have to have a bicycle to get around, something I didn’t go to the trouble to bring. Distances are looooooong -  it’s a 20 minute walk to the beach through the mangroves. I’m surprised they don’t run a shuttle, because most of the people here are obviously retired.  The whole park layout is most convenient for the daily visitors, who come to the beach but don’t stay overnight. The campers are at a far remove. I would even say, a palmetto ghetto. (he he he, I couldn’t help myself). 

The parking lot for the day visitors. This guy has the right idea. 

 The road back to the camping area.

People visiting the campers also have to pay the daily park fee to get in ($8) so it’s not the most amenable situation to have people drop by to see you. Oh, you could get into the very back of the parking lot of the Cross and Sword amphitheatre and climb over a very well-maintained locked gate and then walk up a dark ‘park services only’ road and then walk another quarter mile to my camp site. Yes, I cased it out.  It would be nothing if I was 20. Or my guests were 20.  But, most people I know now are going to be driving through and popping for the $8. 

The internet café, a lá Anastasia Island State Park 

So I’m casing the joint, see, and I took the 20 minute walk down to the beach area and I’m starting to warm to the idea of being here. I checked out the internet café, though it’s a long slog with a laptop to get here, so I’ll be back tomorrow to send this to you all when I get a rental bike. I went on down the boardwalk to the beach entrance through the dunes and as I turned the corner and glimpsed the beach, every pore in my body hummed “H-o-o-o-o-o-m-m-m-m-m-e”!

It's still pretty cold; not many people on the beach. 

God, I love the beach. Growing up around the beach is so formative, I can’t imagine how anyone inland does it. It is a state of body. Your molecules sing. Now I remember why I’m here. I had to come home.

These and More Photos for this post.   

~~~~~~~ later

The nights here are amazing. Moonlight filtering through the twisted oaks and mangrove and palmettos making black lace on creamy sand. The breeze drifting and rustling and rushing in the leaves all of a sudden. I remember this well. The beach is where I had most of my earliest sexual experiences, and the body remembers it too. Like that 16 year-old night my girlfriend and I snuck away from the Hilton Head motel that her parents had taken us for a weekend.  Found a locals beach party. Made out in a Jeep in the moonlight while they drove us back to the hotel. Where we were caught, lectured and whisked away back home for out well-enjoyed sins. Sex. The beach is sex. Sand in your crack and sandfleas in your nethers sex. But the moonlight on the sand is a pheromone, you can’t deny it.

Sorry, just getting carried away on the night breeze. Going back inside to sleep. A good hippie station here, playing “Cisco Kid Was a Friend of mine.”  I’ll leave you with that. Good night.