Last Looks at Anastasia For Now

Sunday-Wednesday                                                      Most Recent Posts:
November 13-16, 2016                                                   Ever Heard of Fort Mose?  Me Neither, but What a Story!
Anastasia State Park                                                     Paddling Salt Run and Hiking Ancient Dunes
St. Augustine, Florida

 

 

SUNDAY

We’re winding up our two weeks here at Anastasia and have really enjoyed our easy relaxing stay here by this beautiful beach.

Here are some of the things we did during our last few days in Anastasia.

We cheered on the runners of a half marathon that came through the park early Sunday morning as we were on our way for a walk on the beach.

 

In the wetlands off the boardwalk a Tri-Colored Heron looks stunning in the early morning light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Down near the water, things looked black and white in the early morning fog.

 

You can hardly see the pier where we are headed.

 

Even zoomed

 

But that doesn’t deter the surfers.

 

Or bicyclists

 

Or the detectives

 

When we arrive at the pier we are suprised to see this cool Splash Park.   To get out on the pier, it’s a $2 charge if you don’t want to fish and $3 if you do.   The splash park is free.  Bet this is a popular spot around here in mid summer. 

 

 

A couple of folks checking out the dog water bowl.

 

A marsh rabbit in the grass.  That’s one big bunny.

 

But he’s really cute!

 

I’m not much of a dove fan but this guy is pretty attractive as doves go.  I tried to look him up but couldn’t find anything about him.  Lots of various types of pigeons and doves hanging around the people empty water flowing splash park.

 

Daivd is surrounded, but not for long.

 

 

 

MONDAY

This evening we head up the boardwalk to its highest point to see the sunset and hopefully the Super Moon but with all the clouds it’s not a good bet.  Somehow I always seem to be somewhere with full or mostly cloudy conditions when the cool things in the night sky happen.

 

The sunset looks pretty fine.  But boy is it cloudy.

 

 

Clouds do make for interesting sunsets.

 

But the clouds were really in the way when the supermoon came up over the ocean.

 

If it weren’t for the supermoon being so bright I wouldn’t have even gotten this shot.  That’s about as good as it got for us.  I’m sure glad many of you had great views and shared them.

 

 

 

TUESDAY

This trip to Anastasia we do spend most of our time enjoying the beach. It’s been a long time since we’ve been at the ocean..

On our way out the mat walk to the beach, we come upon another gopher tortoise.  She’s just crossing though and heads off into the dunes when too many people want to take her picture. 

 

If they had all been willing to do their close ups using a zoom which is how this one was done, she wouldn’t have felt so threatened and high tailed it out of there.  Not sure why people have to crowd wildlife the way they do.

 

 

 

Out by the water, the waves have been doing some sculpting of the shore.  Today we also have some small ponds dividing the beach.

 

 

Rather than bike over like we have done several times in the past, we bring our cart to tote everything for us and pick out our spot on the WIDE beach. 

 

One of the highlights of today is meeting some kindred spirits, Roz and Robb.  We share our concern for what may happen to the environment and our National parks with the newly elected president.  We discussed how to deal with people we thought we knew but apparently didn’t.   It was great to meet them.  I hope they will keep in touch  and we’ll run into each other again somewhere down the road.

 

 

 

WEDNESDAY

Today’s the day.  Our last at Anastasia and in our sweet site in the maritime forest.

 

 

This is my kind of campground road. 

 

This is our final walk over the long boardwalk and down to the beach, at least for a while.

 

There is always action near the edge of the water.

 

There were some interesting shells on the beach today.  Pink rock acorn barnacles stand out.

 

Pretty amazing to see these two parts of a bi-valve still attached.  I don’t take shells from the beach, just their pictures so hopefully others can enjoy them and do likewise.

 

 

We didn’t make it over to the light house on land this time so that’s on for next time.

 

 

Such a long wide beautiful beach.  Definitely one of my favorites here in Florida.

 

 

I feel rather like I”m in heaven when I’m here so I’ll close with this beautiful Angel wing
decorating the beach on our last walk.  For this time.

 

We didn’t actually go into the town St. Augustine this trip having been there before but we will be making a return trip in December for 5 days when we definitely will.  And we’ll do the lighthouse.  So if you had hoped to see either of those, come along.

Tomorrow we’ll take a short trip down the coast to Gamble Rogers State Park another park with an ocean front beach.  Its beach is not as wide, nor as long an undeveloped stretch as Anastasia but we have an ocean front site.  The Atlantic right out our front window.  That can’t be beat!