Look, Deer!

Our older son has just completed his thesis for his master's degree and it has kept him swamped and away from us since summer. We knew that by now, we would have some celebrating to do. Sometime in the early summer, or maybe even spring, we made a reservation to spend this past weekend in a beach cabin at St. Joseph's Peninsula State Park about 180 miles west of here. The rates are reasonable and the cabins book up quickly up to 11 months in advance. What we could not tell from on-line is that not all cabins are not created equal and we happened to reserve the only un-remodeled cabin in the park. It was OK, but the renovations are nice.

Our route took us along US highway 98 that follows the coastline, right at the Gulf coast water for miles on end. It was a crystal clear, blue day on Friday when we went down. It was cold and windy, but beautiful. We stopped in Apalachicola for lunch and then walked around the village, poking into the quaint little shops there. It was fun, but we were probably the most impressed with the book store.

We arrived at the park in the late afternoon and were greeted by deer on the drive in.

We were to see groups of up to seven at a time during the weekend. The last morning, there were two grazing and browsing in the yard, having their breakfast as ours was being prepared.

Tracks were everywhere in the park; they seemed to enjoy jogging on the bay side beach. We also saw the tracks of many raccoons and bobcats, as well as fox, mice and, perhaps, coyote.