We landed at a state park near Destin Florida, it was hot, we were a little uncomfortable with the humidity and this park was the only one we could find that was reasonably priced and had an available spot, we grabbed the last one. The kids caught a cool caterpillar that they named Caddy and took great care of while we were there.
The next morning while Jen and Henry were at the bathroom, a young girl rides by on a bike followed by her mom carrying a young boy. It was our friends from Hot Springs National Park that we camped near and played with. When we last left them, they were headed West towards Texas, but they changed their minds when the weather there looked daunting. The kids got right back to playing just like they had before and Jen and the mom caught up which was great timing as Jen was having a rough couple of days and a friendly face to talk with (besides mine 😉 was just what God knew she needed.
The next day we asked if they had availability for another night. We hadn’t planned on staying here at all and not multiple days, but it was comfortable, there was water and friends there, and sure enough another night was in the cards. We had to switch sites, which was comical, because our friends had to move sites as well, we flip flopped sides of the campground. While I was booking the 2nd night, I also payed for a canoe rental, which was a lot of fun for the whole family for a little while. Amelia and I dropped the two freeloaders off at the beach for Henry to swim and we took another lap out further into the water. She was a great paddler and we had some good father/daughter time together.
We locked the canoe back up on the beach and returned the paddles and life jackets to the boat house next to the registration office. As we were sitting in our site before dinner we had a possum walk along the edge of our site and we all got to see a live one for the first time (there’s been plenty “sleeping” on the side of the road).