Grayton Beach State Park, Florida

Jim and I went to Grayton Beach State Park in the panhandle of Florida from New Years Eve until Tuesday, January 5, 2010. What a beautiful park - very typical of the state parks in Florida that we have stayed at. The sites are private with palmetto and trees in between the sites, giving one lots of privacy. This park has trails cut through the center to each site so you can get to the facilities fairly easily. They have an old section and a new section but the new section does not have the privacy like the old section. Jim had an awful time backing in to the site we reserved (23) -- it was on a curve and there were trees across the road that partially blocked him from backing in. I had to ask the people across from us to move their truck so Jim could pull into their site just to have enough room to back into ours. He was about to give up when a couple of other campers came and helped him back in.

We did not take the bikes or canoe, but it turned out to be so cold that I don't know if we would have biked or canoed. I guess the cold front that swept down the eastern US also went into Florida because it did not get above 40 the whole time we were there, and the nights were in the 20's. We even had to crack the outside spigot to keep the water from freezing.

So all we did was rest and take some hikes. We hiked around Western Lake and you can look at the pictures to see that it looked like a Hobbit's den when first entering the walk. Neat! Entrance to Western Lake Trail. We also went on a short hike in Point Washington State Forest that was close by. 

We went to the Chautauqua Vineyards and winery store up at I-10 & US 331 where we could sample all of the wines they made and ended up buying 12 bottles of their wine. Also got a recipe for mulled wine using their Nobel wine. One bottle of Nobel; 1/2 bottle of water; one spice bag and 1/2 cup brown sugar. Mix together and heat in crock pot to keep warm. Yummm. 

Met a young couple in their early 20's -- Adam and Courtney and discovered their parents lived close by us in Atlanta -- Lilburn and Marietta. They met at Georgia Southern and are now living in Destin and going to school nearby. They missed camping and decided to come out that weekend to camp -- and just about froze since they were in a tent and had no heat.