Third time down there for Tim and Eileen. This time the Walls of Madison crossed paths with us, their first visit to the place. Tom’s sister Therese showed up for a couple of days. Before getting into specifics, let’s open up with a gallery of “tiny RVs”. More than a few of our friends are anticipating empty nests and have allowed that it might not be so bad to caravan all over the place willynilly . . . but NOT with one of them honking enormo trailers or buses. So to that end and for everyone’s viewing pleasure, here are some of the cool smaller rigs seen down south.
We arrived in Ft DeSoto a few days before the Walls. Our campsite and a few shots nearby.
(For more photos of the camping area proper, refer to previous postings.
A note. This camp is divided into three areas: tent and popups, big guys with no pets, big guys with pets. Our other two trips were in the tenting area, but now we have a (petite 17′) solid body RV, so we were in with the buses and 5th wheels. Quite a difference in look and feel. 3/4’s of the rigs are rock star tour buses. Lots of gigantic 5th wheelers, and an odd assortment of typically gargantuan stuff. We feel like we’re sandwiched between skyscrapers at times. The neighborhood is eerily quiet. No one is around! I guess when you have half a Mil into your rig, by God you’re gonna sit in it all damn day. In the tents area, everyone is out, milling around talking to their neighbors. I guess that’s what you do when you don’t have two big screen TVs to pass the time. Another note – half our fellow campers are Canadian. Makes for a real peaceful time.
The Walls showed up with a rented, perfectly restored early model Vanagon. Stunning to look at, less stunning to sleep in according Ms. Wall. 
The first morning we were all there we pedaled to North Beach, mostly to look around. It’s 4.5 miles to the northern end of North Beach. We measured the parking lot there at 3/4 of a mile. Just huge. First stop, the old Fort and the very large pier right next to it. I flatted heading to the pier and discovered my rear tire was down to the threads. Got it going again, but a day later, on our first ride on the Pinellas Bike Trail, I had to burn the better part of an hour buying and installing a new one.
The Wall’s first look at North Beach.
Sadly there’s no photo documentation of our first group assault of the Pinellas Trail. It was an excellent ride, about 38 flat miles, a good start to the season.
We drove to a launch spot at the closest point, near Gibbs High School. Pedaled out about 18 miles, had lunch in Belleair, then turned around. We grilled one night at our campsite.
Another day Eileen and Cathy accompanied Therese on her Quest for Housing. She and Mark are figuring to come down next winter for a couple of months and by God she’s not going to be caught living in some flophouse! So Tim and Tom, left unsupervised, drove to the nearest Publix, got on a bike path spur that went north and eventually hit the main Pinellas Trail. It turned out to be an interesting section. It wound hither and yon, following a stream bed, and it went through the heart of some of the lower economic rungs of the entire county. We saw some serious daytime pickup hoops. No one bothered us. Once we hit the main trail, it was a solid off-road run into downtown St. Petes. We played the tourist at the beach, then rode north to check out some neighborhoods and more of the Pinellas Trail on the east side of the county. On the way back into town, hit a bike shop, bought another tire for Eileen’s bike. Then we reversed our steps all the way back to the truck. Nice ride. Below, Tom rides through a bunch of roosting birds on a bridge, not content to let them chill.
Here’s a dark beach evening inside the camp at Ft. DeSoto where all five of us watched the sun go down.
The Walls eventually had to leave. We were very sad! They made the drive home with one stop in Atlanta.
Tim and Eileen got one more long ride in on the West section of the Pinellas Trail. We drove (and drove and drove) to a trailhead near Belleair and went north from there. The highlight was Dunedin, a small town reeking of charm north of Clearwater. Some local artist specialized it jazzing up cruiser bikes into works of art. He had a dozen of them scattered around town.
Then is was time to move on. Tim and Eileen packed up and made the long drive to Panama City for a three day stay at St. Andrews State park. St. Andrews is located on the very eastern edge of Panama City Beach, mostly away from dense craziness. It’s a large park with a few great beaches. The camping was tight, a little more red-necky than DeSoto, but good anyway. Good infrastructure, very nice showers. The coastline is complex around Panama City. Our camp was “on the water”, in this case “St Andrews Bay – Grand Lagoon”. We hit a cold front. The first night it was 45F and the wind howled off the water. But a day later it warmed way up and the wind died.
We only stuck around for 3 days, 2 night. Met some WI folks in camp who gave us some tips. There’s a short riding loop in the park, after that we rode city streets in Panama City Beach. Nothing special. But we were told that if we crossed a bridge to the other side of the lagoon, the riding expanded considerably. It’s a place to consider returning to, and it’s 400 miles closer than St. Petersburg.
Next stop – Charleston, SC
This was another 400 mile day. We got an early start, still showed up to our campground in the dark, lost, ten minutes after the gate was scheduled to close. Luckily the gate guy was late too. We got in ok and the staff took good care of us. This was the day when we finally realized that we can’t be expecting to move from one camping spot to the next with a 400 mile gap in between and still show up before dark. 300 miles is about the limit.
Our home was another county park named James Island. It was a decent enough place to camp. Huge acreage in total, not much vegetation around the campers, we were packing in tight. Nice shower facilities, very friendly campground hosts. James Island is a multi-use area. It hosts a lot of large music concerts, there are vast fields for that. It has an large water park, which wasn’t open yet. This multi acre park is laced with paved bike paths. As we were to find out, this was all the biking that occurs anywhere within a hundred miles.
The whole Charleston area is complex, very rugged shorelines, water and rivers everywhere. Few roads actually qualify as through roads, the vast majority are short neighborhood affairs. It seems to be an old habit in these parts to make driving lanes a foot or two more narrow that we’re used to. There are no paved shoulders, period. All this adds up to a death trap in wait for cyclists. We didn’t even try.
Charleston proper is almost an island, and is one of the most dense places I’ve ever visited. Our camp was 8 miles away and we made the mistake of driving downtown with our truck. We’re lucky we’re not still there, stuck in traffic. Narrow streets, thousands of pedestrians, a few bicycles with suicidal tendancies. No place to park much of anything, let alone a 19′ truck. We wandered around, realized we weren’t going to be getting out of our vehicle, and made the slow slog off the island. We never saw a single thing of note there.
For what it’s worth, here’s a few pics of the camp
