Post 18 Lillian, Perry and Crystal River

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 Dec 10-20

We left New Orleans behind and drove along the Gulf coast on our way to Florida. We stopped at the white sand beach in Biloxi...it’s still beautiful! We had spent a week in the Biloxi area rebuilding with Habitat for Humanity back in 2010.  A lot has changed!  There’s now a bunch of casinos and resorts along the beachfront. 










We started the Florida leg of our adventure with a 3-night stop in Lillian, AL, just across the river from Pensacola, FL.

Pensacola is home to a few wildlife refuge areas, and beautiful State Parks, so we did a lot of hiking the 2 days we were there. Big Lagoon State Park is the NW terminus of the 1,515-mile Florida Circumnavigational Saltwater Paddling Trail. We saw many birds that call the area home – bald eagle, osprey, egret and great blue heron. The blue skies were often punctuated with Blue Angel training flyovers! Their base is in Pensacola. One morning we found a great diner for breakfast and a local brewery for a late afternoon tasting.  And, we couldn’t leave without having a seafood boil!

















Our next stop was Perry, FL.  We had packed our winter coats and extra blankets preparing for our time in Banff, Canada.  We hadn’t needed them until we got to Perry, Florida!  With nighttime lows in the 20s and daytime highs only in the 50s with 15-25 mph winds, we were glad for that extra layer!  Fortunately, the campground had a beautiful heated community room where we hunkered down and watched movies and played games.  The owners were great and let us just lock up when we went to bed.  This photo pretty much sums up our time in Perry.😄

We left the cold weather in Perry and moved on to Crystal River.  The weather was perfect there.  We’ve been on the road for 5 months and still only had 3 rainy days!  As we write this, California and Washington are experiencing floods.  Glad we’re not there now!




Crystal River is further south and on the coast.  We stayed in a brand new campground with 3 small marshy ponds which provided fantastic bird watching right behind our site.  However, we thought they might have given more consideration to placing the tent sites right next to the alligator pond!







Crystal River is home to a large winter manatee population and we took full advantage of that.  On our first day we signed up for a tour to swim with the manatees.  What a fabulous experience!  Both of us agree that it was 10 times better than our swims with the dolphins or sting rays.  They are so curious and come right up to you. Awesome to the max!!











The next day, we went to Three Sisters Spring, where the manatees come to warm up.  They come in with high tide, rest and get warm, and return to the Gulf with low tide to feed.  We had been to this spring about 10 years ago and didn’t see any manatees.  This day there were too many to count.






We spent a day at the state park, which is also a rehab facility for shore birds and manatees.  They have an incredible collection of large birds, a few manatees and some other Florida wildlife. All of the wildlife there cannot be released back into the wild due to injury.






We found the local brewery, which became our “Cheers” while we were in town.  We stopped there on our first afternoon and met the manager, Debbie.  What a gem she is.  She convinced us to come back that night for Christmas Trivia.  When we stopped back on our last day, Debbie was there to greet us by name.  What a great place!




Campground prices are steep here in Florida, especially during the two holiday weeks. So, we've opted for a couple of Airbnb’s through New Year’s.  Next stop is 9 days in Clearwater.

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