Tag: Ft. McAlister State Park

Spring 2021-Part 2

Ft. McAlister SP, North Beach CG & Resort

Our departure from Skidaway SP was my birthday, Wednesday, April 7, which dawned with a noisy territorial (?) battle amongst four or five barred owls above and around the newest of the nearby bath houses. We listened and watched—the fight included great volumes of vocalization, and flapping and chasing of groups. It was fascinating!

Annie also departed, and we rolled out of the campground headed for Ft. McAlister State Park at about the same time. She recommended a BBQ place en route called the Smokin’ Pig—all of their outdoor seating was taken, so we grabbed a couple of pulled pork sandwiches and ate ours in the car. I can highly recommend their mustard sauce (mild or hot).

We arrived for our one-night stay at Ft. McAlister fairly early (1PM) but were able to check into our pull-through site (#46) under the scrutiny of an older couple across the road.

Our older neighbors seemed to be grandparents to at least part of a mob of loud, rambunctious kids running wild. Our site backs to a tents-only loop where a pack of Good Ole Boys are planted and spread over a large portion of the area, sharing cooking, fishing, and drinking options. 

While the showers at the bath house were individual rooms, the child mob harassed us both as we used the facilities. Unsure if they didn’t realize that a locked door meant the room was in use or not, I slapped the door and shouted “someone’s in here!” during an especially prolonged rattle of the doorknob. That seemed to quiet things down a bit and I was able to finish my shower in peace.

We wandered through the loops just to see what Ft. McAlister was like, and took a few photos for the record. Not much there except pretty live oaks adorned with Spanish moss, and a boat launch into a deep water channel.

Because the temps had risen to a still, humid 80+ degrees, we kept the AC running not only for comfort, but to help drown out the screeching and shouting of the child-mob. The cool AC indoors also eased my itchy bumps from yesterday’s mosquito feed.

My “birthday cake” after a dinner of leftovers (they don’t call me the Leftover Queen for nothing) consisted of hot biscuits with camembert cheese, dried figs, and almonds. Yum.

Managed to exit Ft. McAlister by about 8:30A on Thursday, April 8. Listened to the end of Carl Hiaasen’s Squeeze Me, and were delighted to re-visit one of the long-time characters of Hiaasen’s novels, Skink: Florida Ex-Governor, who’d gone off the rails.

Otherwise the drive to North Beach Campground and Resort, a private campground hard off the A1A near St. Augustine was uneventful. Choosing to drive down A1A (the Coastal Highway) we found traffic was not the problem we’d feared even with all the lights along the way.

Recommended to us by JB, North Beach Resort offered sites closely-packed, but there was always decent visual barriers between. Ours was #21, with lots of shade from lovely old live oaks. The bath house was up at the main structure, but not a horrible walk, and the toilet/shower areas were decently kept, although could be better in my estimation.

After setup, we tried to ride our bikes around the campground loops, but found the sand too fine, deep, and dry for our tires. We finally escaped through one of the back access points through the surrounding fences (near a restaurant adjacent to the CG called Aunt Kate’s) and into the neighborhood to the south. All of the east/west roads start at the A1A and stop/dead end at the Tolomato River, which one must cross, over a long, arched bridge near a harbor, to go anywhere except the beach. It was a good ride, totaling a bit over 7 miles that we enjoyed a couple of times while staying at North Beach.

Last stop that evening, we rode a small distance along A1A toward the entrance gate to North Beach Resort but paused on the beach-side of the road at a restaurant called The Reef. We got a menu and asked if they fixed take-out (yes) and headed back to #21 to shower and decide on dinner. 

Jack called our order in, and drove across the road to bring it back and it was yummy: Jack had the seafood pasta and I ate fried shrimp, enjoying the evening in the Clam.

Friday, April 9 was the first of several days away, riding rail-trails we’d read about. But first, we arose a bit before dawn and took a long stroll along the public beach to catch the sunrise and some shore birds, as well as a couple of fliers.

The first trail went east/west, and had been adopted from the Rails to Trails Conservancy by the locality of Palatka. We parked at a trailhead in a dodgy neighborhood off Armstrong Rd, but there was a toilet and some potable water with which to fill water bottles. This trailhead was closer to St. Augustine than Palatka, but it was a nice ~13 mile stretch to the outskirts of Palatka, where we turned around. It is possible to ride all the way from St. Augustine, but we elected to avoid as much urban cycling as possible.

En route back to site 21, we got a nice birthday steak, mushies to sauté, and zucchini to grill beside the steak. I made some hassle back potatoes in the 8” DO, and Jack whipped together some roquefort butter to melt on the steaks, done perfectly.

  • Stats:
  • Temp = 77
  • Ride Time = 2 hr
  • Distance = 26 mi
  • Average speed = 13.35 mph 

The next day (Ap. 10) we drove to Palatka and rode to the Lake Butler State Trail. This was a 40-odd mile multi-use trail, of which we rode ~10 miles (one way). Our trailhead was on the west side of Palatka near the municipal airport. This time, we’d remembered to bring snacks, and had a nice break at our turn-around point. 

Rain was forecast, so we buttoned down the hatches in prep, and ate a nice, easy egg salad on greens dinner.

  • Stats:
  • Temp = 80
  • Ride Time = 1.5 hr
  • Distance = 21 mi
  • Average speed = 14.3 mph

The rain came on Sunday, April 11, and we drove into Jacksonville to see if REI had any “flip clip” pedals for my bike (clip-ins on one side and flat surface on the other). But like all bicycle components during this Time of Plague, they were out and didn’t expect them to be available anytime soon.

But since it was REI, we prowled around a bit and bought a few things that we couldn’t live without.

Got a Domino’s pizza to eat in the car for lunch, and the rain had stopped by the time we got back to the campsite. Tried to close our rings (Apple Watch exercise) by walking around the loops and the next-door neighborhood, exiting through the fence near Aunt Kate’s Restaurant. Saw some pelicans, and fisher-people.

Ordered from The Reef again: Jack tried their shrimp imperial and I ate shrimp & grits and it was another delicious meal.

Bike Florida Spring Ride Pt. 1

It is now April 9, two weeks after we began our Florida cycling adventure, and our travels up from FL to Virginia again, and there to Janes Island State Park in MD. So, it’s catch up time (NOT ketchup time).

Our intermediary stop en route to Bike Florida’s spring ride was near Savannah, GA. After driving some 6 or 7 hours (a very long time towing) we hauled into Ft. McAlister State Park. This is a nice little park across a bay (don’t know the name) from Skidaway SP.

 

 

Our site, #44, was a drive-through, so we didn’t unhitch or do any set up at all, as our goal was to depart as early as reasonable the next day.

We had thought #44 was near the bathhouse, but as it turned out, there was a ton of construction going on, and enormous sections of the camping loops were closed. Long ditches crossed some of the paved driveways as they were laying new cable for electricity. And the worst part of it was that the target bathhouse was a total goner, with only stub-ups and piles of gravel to mark its renovation. 

So it turned out to be a long walk to the toilets, but it was pleasant enough.

Next day, we drove about 5 hours to our first Bike FL campiste, in “Camper’s Holiday” (site 27), and met up with Mark and Angela, with whom we were riding the tour. This was their first “organized” bike tour, so we went out directly after setting up to register and have dinner.

1910 rowing team

The next day (March 29) Was Day One of the Bike FL ride. Happily, they started us off gently, with a 22-miler, much of which was along the Suncoast Trail, which was paved and quite lovely.

Angela was having a leg issue, so she stayed back to rest and ice her leg. At that point, we discovered that the Camper’s Holiday was a prime vacation spot for a type of caterpillar that loves to eat live oak leaves. It was literally raining caterpillar poop, and the devils infested everywhere. Angela seemed to have a particular attraction for the devils, and she found herself plagued by (and completely creeped-out by) these nasty critters. 

By the time we left Camper’s Holiday, the beasties were cocooning and we found them in every imaginable crevice and nook, cranny and crack. Ugh. Big downside of Camper’s Holiday (at least at this time of year)—which, for the most part, was a nice, clean, friendly place. 

But the sites were chock-a-bloc next to one another, and ours was the smallest rig in any space anywhere. Half the place was permanent residents and the other half was transients—most of whom were snowbirds who spent their winters there in enormous homes on wheels.

Day Two of Bike Florida was somewhat different in that we discovered that the Brooksville area is the “hill country” of FL. We did a significant amount of climbing on this day, and man-o-man, was that difficult where the seat meets the rider. It was also quite a hot day, but we had decent rest stops and had coated ourselves with plenty of SPF, so in that respect, we were fine.

Happily, some of our ride was along a couple of other rail-trails, one called the Good Neighbor trail and one called the Withlacoochee trail. They were both quite nice, and moderately flat. The Withlacoochee was also nice and shady.

Along the Good Neighbor trail (more sunny because of the enormous long-leaf pines towering above) some wag had decided to take the time to use pinecones to mark his travels along the path. I took a series of pix of this “Pinecone Art” as we rode.

There were also many of these gnarly oaks deeper in the woods along the trail.

Off the path, however, we saw dead orange groves, wildflowers, and other scenes of which I did not have the time or energy to take pix, including: a black snake crossing the road, a dead armadillo, a gang of stork-like birds beside an impoundment, and more wicked hills.

If it hadn’t been for our fave instant-energy cycling snack of Honey Stingers, I might have had to call on the reinforcements (sag patrol). Part of the issue with this Day Two was our need to finish the ride by 1 PM, so there was no leisure involved at all. We had a date with a fraternity friend of Jack’s (and his wife) for dinner that night, and we had to get cleaned up and drive an hour or so away to meet up with them by 5-5:30 PM.

But we made it, and our arranged meetup spot was at a golf club of some fame as well as some history, that was beautiful. On this night, they were offering a seafood buffet, and the place was also famous for its food, so it was packed.

We enjoyed a completely lovely dinner, as well as a long conversation and catch-up with Ashby and Sharon. It’s rare that I have enjoyed meeting total strangers so very much. It was not only like the old saw, about Jack’s and Ashby’s separation for 50 years being like they had seen each other only yesterday—it was almost like that for me as well, who’d never met them before in my life! They were good friends by the end of the evening.

Our view from dinner.

Bike FL Day Three (Mar 31)

Angela had take yesterday off again (wise woman!) but she decided to try out her leg on our Day Three of the ride. Another beautiful day, and we enjoyed it thoroughly. By this time, the “points of contact” between us and our bikes were beginning to be “broken in” (which is a better situation than being not “broken in,” just to be clear).

While it was a rolling countryside day, including some lovely horse farms, we didn’t have to endure the steep grades we’d experienced on Day Two.

When we weren’t on the country roads around Brooksville, we were on the shady trail again, some of it on a different length of the trail.

The rest stops were well-provisioned and good stops, even though we had to see to it that Jack didn’t go into areas where horses were not allowed—often, a guy of his size on a bike is called “A Clydesdale.” So no Clydesdales in the photo below.

Among the folks also riding the spring tour were Craig, Linda, and Bruce, from our experiences with Bike Virginia and our Nova Scotia cycle tour back in 2015. Bruce and Craig were always ahead of us (most of the time) but we kept running into Linda along the path. On several occasions we chatted with her on Day Three; and we linked up with Bruce and Craig at tent city or at one or another of the rest stops and events.

Day Four was rainy and a transfer day, so we moved our camp from Brooksville to Inverness, a campground called Mutual Mines Wildlife Refuge, which offered exactly two RV camping sites, and a complicated gate lock that was closed all the time. 

So we took a break from riding, and I’ll tell more about Mutual Mines and our second FL camping adventure in the next blog.

Bike Stats

Day One

  • Ride time=1:40 hour
  • Stopped time=55 min
  • Distance=22 mi
  • Average speed=13.24mph
  • Fastest speed=36.97mph

Day Two

  • Ride time=4 hours
  • Stopped time=1 hour
  • Distance-47.75 mi
  • Average speed=12 mph
  • Fastest speed=30 mph

Day Three

  • Ride time=2:50 hours
  • Stopped time=1:30 hour
  • Distance=33 mi
  • Average speed=11.5 mph
  • Fastest speed=24 mph