White beaches of northern Florida

Next stop on our route is St Joseph Peninsula State Park. We were ready to head north and some people told us that in northern Florida there are beautiful beaches, so we looked at google maps and we chose a random place. It looked nice from the satellite. It was a little bit over our budget (24 USD vs our 20 USD), but what the hell. Before we left Hudson our hosts, Lois and John (we’ll write more about them) confirmed that it’s a good choice, they’ve been there before and it’s beautiful not only from satellite.

Nothern Florida was really charming and the road to peninsula was very picturesque. Maybe we shouldn’t say we liked it. The less official name of Emerald Coast - as it’s officially called - is redneck riviera. But well, Poland, EU is a bit redneck part of Europe. It even looks familiar, lots of pine trees, wide beaches, much like our coast. To make it even more familiar the weather was also very Baltic-like - cold and windy.

On the road to St. Joseph there are lots of wooden houses stilts. We liked them so much we forgot to take any photos! Plus there are no chain places, for many hours we haven’t seen one McDonald's or Wendy’s. We drive through sleepy towns that seem very temporary - they last from one hurricane to another. Wooden frames of houses filled with polystyrene don’t really have a chance when the weather gets extreme. Well, base platform (piles and 1st floor) are made from concrete, but everything above is from wood. Wind will come and blow everything, but on that platform another house can be built, as beatiful as one before.

House on stilts

Campground is situated at the very end of St. Joseph peninsula. Its small sites are sandy and narrow, but we forget all of it after a first short walk: in three minutes we are at the beach with sand so white that even in a cloudy day we need sunglasses. We spend few hours flying a kite, building sandcastles and collecting shells. Some lady we meet tells us about different kinds of shells, gives a few pieces of advice regarding our further route and lets us look through her binocular at dolphins that swim by. We go back to our trailer. There are different birds flying around, including cardinals - red Angry Birds.

Angry birds

We spend an evening drinking beer by a fire listening to tales of our Canadian neighbor. Meeting people at campgrounds is quite easy, especially if you’re not well organized, like we are, and either you need help with gas or your hose is too short. When we said we are from Poland our new friend said he likes Poles, he met them on Golan Heights where he was with UN in 1979.  After we heard that we had to invite him for a beer. 

We talked until 11 pm. Fire was nice and warm, but the wood our other neighbors left behind was making a lot of smoke. Our towels will smell like smoke for another week.

Our neighbour had some interesting stories, as when he was young he sailed on Canadian ship to Argentina, he was in Venezuela during one of military coups, he spent some time in military base in Germany, he traveled all around Middle East with UN Forces wondering around souqs in Damascus and Cairo. At Golan Heights he served with Poles and Iranians who back then were an army made of Kurdish privates and Persian officers, before the revolution swept them all. They were later replaced by Fins who were drinking so much that some of them ended up in the morgue. 

He remembered Poles for their open dislike of Soviet Union and the Red Army. And for drivers in Egypt and it was Poles who took over most of the transportation of UN back then. He told us a story how closely guarded military secrets were torn down when Canadian plane with injured Pole on board had to land in super-secret military base which everyone knew about of course. Brits didn't want to allow it bu tafter short negotiations Canadians landed anyway. Pole was treated for a while and soon after he landed in Cairo he was taken to Poland. The question is, was it for further treatment or for questioning about the secret base everyone knows exist but nobody ever been to...

Looks like it was fun to be Canadian soldier. Now with his wife they live life od typical Canadian retiree, spending 8 months in Canada and 4 travelling across southern States.

He also explained us what's the deal with not picking the fire wood in the woods. Here even outside national and state parks in many places (we admit we didn't do the research yet) you can't pick up wood. It is there, gets rotten and people buy wood fire in the store. And every once in a while there's "control fire". We've seen one when we were there. Our Canadian friend explained that first of all it's supposed to prevent spreading the pests (really? when collecting firewood?), second of all some palm trees shed their seeds only after fire (smart). Palm trees are clever beasts. In Guatemala we've seen palm trees growing inside other living trees. It looked like they were growing in hollow trunks and when they were big enough they just burst from the host.

He also told us that in Canada in some counties you can't even cut down the tree in your own yard. You have to call the authorities and they will come, cut the tree and utilize the wood. All for the sake of environment. Fascinating that all this happens in countries that don't see any problem when destroying landscape with industry (crossing Ohio river was full of landscapes like that) and controlling population of seals with wooden clubs...

Control fire

We were sad to leave St. Joseph. We'd love to stay there few more days (even despite the cold), but after all there are more states than just Florida. It's time to go west.