Lake Santeetlah and Fontana Dam area

We're back in North Carolina. Right near the place where we were when we last visited this fine state. Several years ago, Sam and I came to hike a section of the Appalachian Trail - the week before Thanksgiving. We planned on going about 30 miles from Winding Stair Gap to the NOC. We never made it that far thanks to inclement weather. We were drenched upon and threatened to be frozen so we left the trail and became car tourists.


Fast forward to these several years later. We plan on doing the same thing. This time picking up where we left off on the trail - at Wayah Gap and this time heading all the way to Fontana Dam. This trip would be a 50 mile hike. We don't make it again - thanks to inclement weather. I know you'll read about this trip in another post. I just wanted to explain why we decided to head for this area again.


We found a beautiful NFS campground on Lake Santeetlah to prepare for our hike and to get caught up on a few things we hadn't had time for. The campground was on beautiful Lake Santeetlah. It comes complete with a few electric sites, all sites with a view of the lake, a few nice primitive cabins to rent and hot showers!

The dogwoods were in their prime!

We paid a visit to the Fontana Dam area to check out places to park our rig while we hiked the Appalachian Trail.

We couldn't wait to get out on the trail later that week. More on that to come! Notice the bright blue, sunny skies in all these pictures...

Summer Haven Beach

After spending a few days in St. Augustine, we decided we needed to hit the beach and drove down Hwy. 1 a ways south of the city. To our surprise we were delighted to find out the beach along this stretch of FL was one of the most beautiful we had ever seen.

We spent several hours walking in the crystal clear warm waters, looking for shells and looking at the interesting coquina formations and feeling the warmth of the sun.

After the beach we decided to head towards the St. Augustine lighthouse that we had been seeing from a distance. We climbed all 217 steps to the top!

St. Augustine

To complete our tour of early American History, we needed to visit America's oldest city - St. Augustine. On our move to cooler climates in the north, we stopped to visit for a few days.

The old part of the city boasts narrow cobblestone streets, quaint cafes, interesting shops and tons of historical sites.

Of course, Kim had a particular interest in the oldest wooden schoolhouse. So did all the children in town visiting on field trips.

We found a great pizza place with the best pizza that we had ever eaten. It was so good that we ended up going back again for lunch the next day. If you're ever in St. Augustine, we highly recommend having a slice of pizza from this place.

No trip to St. Augustine would be complete without a visit to Castillo de San Marcos. Construction on the fort started in 1672. The fort is a well preserved structure made with coquina blocks quarried from a nearby island. Coquina is a sedimentary stone made from crushed seashells. The stone is a very good material for forts because of its softness. Cannon balls would sink into the wall rather than shatter or puncture it.

Re-enactors in period dress are always around the fort. They often give historical weapons demonstrations as well as presentations on the life and experiences of the colonists who dwelt here. We happened to catch a cannon shooting demonstration while we were there.

We also enjoyed a few more sights around the city before heading back to the campground.

One quick story about our experience in the city before I head on to the next post. We were walking around in a few antique stores when Sam spied this whale bone carving. After striking a good deal he carried it proudly home. Looking it up on the internet later on that evening, he discovered that it was a mass produced piece of art. No real find. Oh well. It was returned to the antique shop the next day.

Merritt Island NWR

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge is one of the top birding sites on the Florida Atlantic coast. The refuge contains 21 threatened and endangered animals. This is more than any other U.S. refuge outside of Hawaii. All the refuge lands were purchased in the 1960's by the US government to develop the Kennedy Space Center. Non-essential part of the property created a buffer around the space center and became the refuge.

Approximately one half of the 140, 000 acres contained in the refuge are brackish estuaries and marsh. The remaining lands consist of beaches, dunes, scrub oaks, pine forest and oak and plam hammocks.

Bird abound! We were told that the numbers were down because the water was low. We discovered that if you found water, you found birds! Large numbers of wading birds were in pockets where we found water that contained food.

High winds kept us from wanting to stay at the beach for very long.

We enjoyed hiking several different trails through oak and palm hammocks. Though we heard several birds, we never got many good looks. We enjoyed a bite from a sour wild orange.

While walking on one of the boardwalks, we heard what we thought was a branch falling out of the tree. Looking to where it had falled we saw a small snake trying to wriggle through the holes in the boards.

There were plenty of vines to enjoy and play Tarzan on.









Within site of each other you have the advancement of travel to outer space to the primitive Florida landscape complete with prehistoric relics.