No one yell at me! I know, I know, it's been eight days since my last update! I'm sorry! If I had another adult travelling with me, I'm sure I would update more often. As I don't, I update when I have somewhat steady internet.
Now...Ocean Springs Mississippi.. I can't say the hotels so far have been stellar, but they're a roof over my boys' heads and a source of familiarity for them. Personally, I hate hotels. I think they're expensive, frustrating, and overall if I can't sleep in a tent, I'll sleep in my truck. But I don't have that option this time.
We left Ocean Springs and drove the longest stretch along the coast to a little place called Dr. Jillian G. Bruce St. George Island. Or, St. George Island State Park. It's a little island about an hour south of Panama City. It's achingly gorgeous, with white sand dunes, the ocean on one side and a calm bay on the other. You can camp here and camp we did. We set up the brand new pop-up tent within three minutes, much to the amazement of my oldest. We got our bedrolls out, set up and were comfy and cozy. Camping chairs, and a laundry line made our temporary shelter rather nice actually. We got there late around 7:45pm after a long days drive and the boys instantly were begging to go to the beach.
So off we set, it's a 6 minute walk from the campsite to the ocean or a two minute drive. The boys noticed the posted signs about stingray season, stating to shuffle your feet in the sand, as a cautionary measure. Somehow this meant to shuffle their feet through the powder soft sand on the small path through the dunes. I video-chatted my mother, and while the picture was a bit pixelated, she could see the boys racing circles across the hardpacked beach and whooping with joy.
The sunset was absolutely beautiful, pastel, cotton candy hues that made me smile. The salt air, I can't say I'm a fan of it but I do love the smell. I let the boys play for about an hour before I made them head back to the campground. We would have all day tomorrow, I reminded them and they came covered in salt-sticky sand and grinning from ear to ear.
I dug our backpacks and microfiber towels out of the tent and we walked over to the restrooms/showers. I took a rather cool shower that felt heavenly after hot sticky humid Florida air, even though I knew the reprieve wouldn't last long. While the boys opted for hot showers. Once you get out the tree line in the campground, there's a steady cool breeze. You're surrounded by towering evergreens and you can smell the pines on the breeze. Not a lot of wind gets to you at ground level in the campground sadly. Granted it was a bit warm in the tent at first, three bodies in a 8' by 7' space but soon they both dropped off and so did I.
The next morning, the boys and I scrambled into our swimsuits and drove the twenty minutes to the tiny local Piggly Wiggly market on the island. Picking up a few basic necessities for food in the ice chest, and two huge cinnamon rolls for the boys for breakfast, we headed back to our campground and the beach. I took the truck, loaded my chair, three towels, and the boys who were quite thrilled to ride in the back of the truck for three whole minutes.
We hit the beach by 10:30am and there was only two other people on the beach. We kept our distance but otherwise had the beach to ourselves. The waves were high and crashed across the shore and the boys wore themselves out trying to fight through the water. They loved it. They laid in the sand and let the edges of the waves wash over them, they were ninjas fighting the water, bickering arguments over who was Poseidon and who was Aquaman. I sat in my chair and watched them play, gods know it did my heart good to see them being so wild.
My youngest, Garrett found some tiny live clams and would sprawl himself on the beach on the wet sand and watch them bury themselves over and over. He tells me he wants to be a marine biologist so he has a major fascination with all ocean and sea creatures. Camren, my oldest, had more fun digging holes in the sand and dumping sand on his brother when he could get away with it.
After three hours, I called it quits and we headed back to the campsite. Quick showers to rinse off the sand and then we had a very small lunch. We sat in our camping chairs, drinking juice boxes and listening to the various birds in the trees for about an hour or two. Then it was back to the beach and this time I joined in the playing in the waves, laughing when they would get knocked down and teaching them how to let the waves rolling in "surf" them towards the beach.
I found a whole group of little clams and called my youngest over. After pouring some wet sand in his hands, I set the clams in his hand as well so he could feel them moving in the sand. He told me this was "Flippin' awesome but they feels so weird!!"
By five pm, I was wiped out. I could feel the heat on my skin and knew I was sunburnt. I figured the kids were too. Finally I convinced them to head back to camp for ANOTHER rinse off at the showers.
We curled up in the tent so I began reading a story out loud to them. Within minutes they were both asleep and so was I. Camren woke me around seven and told me he was hungry. We faced off against the mosquitos and made a small dinner of bacon and egg sandwiches. (Thank you mom for the camp stove!)
Garrett joined us and threw a spectacular fit about not wanting to eat eggs of any kind. After a minor tantrum, he ate a few pieces of bacon and crawled back into bed. I cleaned up camp as best I could, and by best, I mean very slow. My sunburn had set in with a violence and every movement was searingly painful.
Camren offered to help a few times but I knew he was hurting as much as I was so I told him to stay in the tent. He was grateful to say the least. I cleaned up the camp dinner, washed and packed everything away, and crawled my exhausted and pained self into the tent as well. The humidity was stifling and that should have been my first clue.
A sweet older woman walking her dog, let us know about an hour later that there was a tornado watch on the mainland and we were likely to catch the edges of the storm. I can't say I was thrilled but I crawled out, tugged the rainfly onto the tent, secured it and took our still slightly damp clothes off the laundry line. Repacked the camping gear back into the back of the truck, secured the tarp with multiple pieces of heavy firewood and took the trash to the dumpster.
At first it wasn't bad, the wind that rushed past it brought the storm cooled air with it and for that we were grateful, even if moving was painful. A few small spatterings of rain were nothing to be concerned with. The thunder, lightening and general downpour afterwards was exhausting to say the least. I personally don't mind camping in storms but it was the first time the boys had ever dealt with such a thing. I spent at least two hours soothing them and reminding them that we would be just fine.
If I hadn't been as concerned about the lightening and thunder, I would have sprawled myself out on the tailgate of my truck to let the cold rain ease my sunburn. Unfortunately, the rain found us anyway. The tent didn't really leak, there's a clever air vent that we had propped open near the bottom earlier that day. I however, was not about to go stand in the pouring rain and try to finagle with ties I knew were secure.
I tied my dress up around my knees, grabbed my bowie knife, scrambled out of the tent, sliced the ties, re-zippered the flap shut and practically fell through the door again. I used my towel and rather damp dress to mop up what water had already come through, and finally, we slept.
The morning brought some vague annoyance but more about our pillows and blankets feeling damp from the humidity. Instead, sunburn aching, I packed up our bedrolls, the tent, the kids, and we headed out early the next morning as there were storms coming towards the island with I'm sure heavier rainfall in tow.
The boys, slept in the truck off and on, dozing on their favorite stuffed animals and we headed for Georgia.
--Amie and The Boys