Blythe Island Regional Park, Brunswick, St. Simons Island - Georgia

5/31-6/1 Blythe Island Regional Park, Brunswick, Georgia Sites over 100 Full Hookups for over $30 per day with tax and rates reset every July. Located on 1,100 acress off of route 303. The park has swimming, boating, fishing and all the sites are well shaded. We enjoyed our stay here for just two nights even though we spent more time touring the Golden Isles such as St. Simons Island. Close to restaurants, shops and historic sites. Plenty to do in this area and we would return to this park.
On Wednesday, we drove over to St. Simons Island after stopping at the visitor center to pick up some great information and maps about what to do and where to go. Beautiful island! We visited Fort Frederica National Monument, Methodist Museum and Conference Center, Old Coast Guard House and Museum, Christ Church, downtown with its small shops and restaurants and the Old Lighthouse Museum. Bike trails all over the island. This island is very friendly to walkers, bikers, golf carts and beach goers. Very enjoyable day even though we saw temperatures in the high 90’s with humidity. Headed back to Brunswick to our campground but first stopped at the Old Country Buffet which has won best buffet awards for the last six years for southern cooking. Leaving tomorrow to tour the historic section of Brunswick before we head over to another of the Golden Isles – Jekyll Island for three nights.

Anastasia State Park, St. Augustine, Florida

5/27/28/29/30
Left Salt Springs and traveled northeast through the National Forest towards St. Augustine where we will be camping for Memorial Weekend at Anastasia State Park with Stephanie. It was only about 50 miles away so we arrived in the morning but made some stops – Wal-Mart, Camping World and gas. We have camped here so many times by ourselves and with the kids. It is a good first and last stop in Florida. This state park has 139 sites in seven loops, all with water, electricity and shade. That is why we love it! Some of the most shaded sites that we have camped in which are a walk away from the beach. The beach is beautiful and one can kayak, fish, surf, and wind surf in the inlet.
This park is an easy ten minute ride into the historic town of St. Augustine where you can visit historic sites like the fort, shop in the quaint shops and eat at a number of good restaurants many with tables outside. They now have a parking lot for RV’s a few streets back from the visitor center which is free.
We went back to Stephanie’s apartment in the morning to do laundry and pick up some items she needed and of course dad fixed everything that needed fixing including her car. Drove back to St. Augustine where we ate at Barnacle Bill’s Seafood Restaurant across from the visitor center and we were lucky that we did not have to wait since this is a very popular place to eat and the shrimp was some of the best that we have ever had. It was such a nice day so we found parking near the fort and walked around and shopped at the cute shops. Headed back to the campground and had a fire last night. We plan on going to a winery today after beaching it for awhile. Today is hot and humid! This weekend is flying by and tomorrow we say goodbye to Steph and start to slowly head up the coast towards home but it will take us another two weeks. George and Steph went swimming before we left Monday and the waves were slamming them so bad that both of them lost their bathing suits a few times! They both had a good laugh about that!
We heard from another camper that the new governor wants to close all Florida State Parks and sell them to private companies. Florida has one of the best state park systems in the country and here are the politicians not cutting where they need to cut but selling off their most valuable assets. When will they cut entitlements and build up their infrastructure!

Salt Springs Recreational Area, Ocala National Forest, Florida

5/26 Thursday before Memorial Weekend. The deer in the park are not afraid of anyone and in the morning we had 6 deer eating away and just staring at us as we were getting ready to leave the park. People are feeding them and they expected food! Left around 9 and headed south and east through Ocala horse country. We have driven this route before and the horse farms are beautiful but this time about 30% of the farms were for sale and many were just abandoned. Got a little lost in Ocala but found our way no thanks to the GPS and arrived at Salt Springs right after noon for a one night stopover. Our cell phone and internet service are still not working well and we hope once we get to St. Augustine that we will finally be able to go on line again.

Salt Springs Recreational Area, Ocala National Forest, Salt Springs, Florida
54 sites with no hookups and 106 with full hookups, $16 with Golden Age Pass.
We only stayed one night and we were glad that we made a reservation because they were turning away campers the Thursday before Memorial Weekend. One can hike, bike, paddle canoes, fish, picnic, bird watching and swim, snorkel and scuba in the springs. This is a natural spring with potassium, magnesium and sodium salts so hence the name Salt Springs. There is no privacy in the campground but it is still very nice. Snorkeling you could see a lot of colorful fish, some Otters and a few Manatees. Very refreshing! It was not crowded at all during the week but school gets out in the next week so most weeks in the summer and especially the weekends it will be crowded. This is the strongest current that I have ever snorkeled at and it took me some time to get back up to the steps to get out of this spring. I had to take my flippers off and walk back and my muscles will hurt tomorrow. Very enjoyable!