We departed Thousand Palms RV Resort mid morning and set our course to St Andrews State Park in Panama City Beach, Florida. There are two different routes that we considered to get there. One route would be to take I-75 north to I-10, then head south on US-231 into Panama City. The other route would have us take I-75 only a few miles, then head north west on various state routes and US highways. When pulling our 5th wheel, we usually choose Interstates. But, we decided to take the more scenic back road route this time. It was actually fewer miles and a little shorter time even though we would be going through several small towns and two lane roads most of the way. But, it provided a beautiful view of several horse farms and rolling hills with painted fences and fancy barns. We were only on I-75 a few miles, but it was like a moving parking lot with all the snow birds heading north.
We took our time and stopped to eat our lunch that Kitty always packs when we travel several hours. We also crossed back into the central time zone giving us an extra hour to reach the park before they close the gate. As we entered the park, the sign at the entrance said "Sorry Campground is Full!" Normally, we don't make reservations. But we did this time, thankfully. However, we could only find one four night slot, so we booked it last week.
We checked in and headed site #58. I could see its location on the campground map, but I had to get out of the truck and walk around for 10 minutes looking for site #58. This is a really small site and poorly marked and I walked by it twice before figuring out it was our site. Yikes! We're going to put a 38 foot fifth wheel in there?!!
In addition to being smaller than the website indicated, the street is narrow and one way offering very little wiggle room. There's a big tree leaning over the road at our site just waiting to take our roof off. The best way to avoid this tree would be to come in from the other direction. But, since the street is one way the wrong way, and the campground was buzzing with trucks and RVs continually passing by to their sites, this was not a good option.
After studying the situation, we developed a plan on how we would back the 5th wheel into the site. Now the fun begins! We had to jockey back and forth a couple of times, to everyone's amazement, including mine, we were in the site. My truck was blocking the road so we needed to unhook as fast as possible since we were preventing several vehicles from getting to their sites. We leveled the camper, got the jacks down, and put the wheel chocks in place. All we had to do now was unhook and pull the truck off the road. No! That would be too easy! When I pulled the hitch handle to release the camper, the handle came off in my hand! I couldn't release the camper from the truck and the line of campers was getting longer by the second. I hopped in the truck bed and replaced the pin that holds the handle on the hitch. A quick temporary fix, but it worked and we were able to unblock the traffic jam! Some body fix me a stiff drink, PLEASE! Golly, this is fun stuff! Ha!
St Andrews State Park is located at the southern tip of Panama City Beach and has the beautiful gulf beaches on one side, and the Grand Lagoon on the other side. So, you have your choice of beaches. The campground is located right on the Grand Lagoon. The Grand Lagoon is salt water and enters the Gulf around the southern end of the park. A water front site here would have to be reserved many months in advance.
Here we are relaxing after getting set up.
Here's another shot of our site taken from across the street. Note that the nose of the 5th wheel is right on the edge of the street. We had our finger crossed that no one would hit it!
These next several pictures were taken on the Gulf side of the park. As you can see, the beach was not crowded.
This guy is going to take advantage of a windy day and fly his kite.
He got it flying just before we left the beach.
These next shots were taken on the Grand Lagoon side of the Park.
We saw several deer in the park. Here's one of them enjoying lunch.
Our four day stay here was nice. The bathrooms were new and clean, and we enjoyed the view of the Grand Lagoon. But, the beaches really made this place special. The weather was mostly in the mid 70's although somewhat windy, and the beaches in the park were never crowded and always beautiful.
We had no problems pulling out of our site. We dumped our tanks and continued our track heading north. If we ever decide to come back to St Andrews State Park, we will make sure we get a larger site.
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