INTJohn’s Winter ‘24-‘25 Van Livn

[INTJohn]

1 March, ‘25 Somewhere near Palm Harbor, Fla

After a week in the Bonita Springs/Fort Myers Beach area was time to move on in a northerly direction to my hang north of Clearwater/Tampa.

I’ll be here thru this weekend maybe abit longer then will continue north around Florida’s Big Bend to St George’s Island. I’m determined to spend a few days there and temps are adequate warm.

In the meantime enjoying the great beach & temp scene on this part of the Gulf of “Murahka”
(krax me up)

bch bum jonny livin the dream

 

[INTJohn]

Spent a week at Lovers Key. They have really changed that beach completely with the post hurricane reconstruction and in the process completely recked the shell finding. Hopefully it will improve after a couple storms later this year.

They pumped a planets worth of Gulf of Murahka bottom from about a mile offshore to “rebuild” the beach. It is about 200 yards wide now for over a mile - I kid you not. 39 million dollars and it will all be washed who knows where when the next couple hurricanes hit. A waste of money.
https://www.gulfshorebusiness.com/g...ourish-lovers-key-and-bonita-beach-shoreline/

Have spent last 3 days at Honeymoon and there are big changes here too. The hurricane cut that was mild after Ian can no longer be waded and is 2 hundred yards wide post Helene & Milton. I would swim it with a life jacket tho.


Got good beach walks; found nothing interesting but did get shark bit…….

bch bum jon livin the dream

EDIT: have a sunset pik…….

 

[INTJohn]

and today while on my all day drive from Dunedin to St George’s Island; somewhere around the St Marks Wilderness Area / Econfina River State Park on Hiway 98; I find a 100 watt solar panel that blew off someone’s vehicle during last night’s or early this morning high wind thunderstorms that moved across North Florida.


It doesn’t seem to have been anchored down very well to begin with.


Looks to be in decent shape for going airborne and impacting the side of a ditch.

Specs on back of panel.

it was missing a wire so was interested in what the insides looked like and not only was I able to remove the plastic cover without breaking it; but the gasket is nicely intact and the internal connections are intact so only need to connect a wire.

bch bum jonny road scavenger

 

[INTJohn]

6 Mar ‘25 Somewhere on St George’s Island, Fl

Haven’t been here for 18 months……..
Windy thru the night with gusts approaching gale force winds. Temp not as warm as I would like but adequate. Slept ok my usual spot.


Good Morning! 45 minutes b4 sunrise……
looking forward to a 10ish mile beach explore; starting in a few hours…….

bch bum jonny livin the dream

 

[AtlantaGuy]

You live the best life.

 

[Juan Chacho]

Any advice for someone who's never been to Florida? Are there really sand fleas?

 

[Morgana]

Any advice for someone who's never been to Florida?

Go pretty soon or wait till the fall
Be prepared to have to book way in advance
Don't neglect inland areas, they're gorgeous too.
Get a state park pass
Read Carl Hiaasen including his YA novels (but don't expect t to be quite as easy to see natural areas as his characters find it)
Sometimes the best nature spots are smack-dab in the middle of built-up areas so don't be put off by that (or hold your nose and go anyway).
Check out Titusville for funky 1960s architecture that they've been too broke (since NASA cut back) to urban-renew and for gorgeous natural areas (which they inherited when NASA cut back), also sometimes you get to see rockets. While there definitely eat seafood at Dixie Crossroads.
On the way to or from there, make a pit stop in Yeehaw Junction
The rivers are amazing
In the winter try to see manatees. A good place: Blue Spring State Park. A bad (IMO)(but very popular) place: Crystal River. Don't do the swim-with thing, not only is it bad for the critters (IMO) but there's some ******* in every tour group who gets too close, kicks up debris so you can't see, etc. Do something that will be fun even if you don't get to see a manatee, and get lucky. Homosassa State Park has some tame/injured ones that are there year round, also lots of other critters.
There are tons of kayak tour and rental places and most of the tours make it really easy for beginning kayakers.
The La Chua trail near Gainesville is great. If the water level is high, there's a ? .5 mile boardwalk, when the water goes down (it fluctuates a lot) there's an additional ?1.5 miles of trail. You can get way closer to the gators than you should and there are tons of them but they mostly just lounge around. It is an absurd amount of freedom for a US public space and will probably continue being fantastic until some idiot abuses the freedom too much >> problem >> tighter rules. For now, great fun. Also buckets of birds. Not that easy to find the first time so follow directions carefully.
(My information is 2-3 years old so verify)

 

[INTJohn]

8 Mar ‘25 St Augustine Beach, Fla.

Left St George’s Island yesterday evening just b4 sunset on my way to Anastasia St Park at St Augustine Beach.
Drove for about 90 minutes to the tried & true Perry, Fl Walmart and spent the night; always been a quiet pit stop.

Awoke this morning; hitting the road at 6am and finished the drive to St Aug. just chillin here today; cloudy with off & on rain drops so park is dead. I Love Cloudy Rainy Weekends! Have the place almost all to myself.

Was planning on spending 2 or 3 days here but
Mid morning low tides are urging me to drive 90 minutes north this evening to Fernandina Beach and what usually is awesome shelling there and Fort Clinch.

Prolly will……..
bch bum jon b moovin on