March 20th, 2020 – May-ish 2020

We ended our trip in Carabelle, FL with the museum shutting down along with their lighthouse and beaches. Each municipality appears to be handling this differently in FL. With Oregon’s more aggressive response to the virus, Clark and I felt good about having some additional insight to what could be coming down the pike and making plans to stay put in Port St. Joe (PSJ) . It seems to be a little ‘monkey see, monkey do’ in terms of policy right now. PSJ is a small town with about 3,500 people and we found all of the RVers to be long-term, full-time RVers with a strong sense of community. The same folks that were there weeks ago are still there, some having moved to a different site location around the park.

We started out by the marina and were checking in with the office pretty much daily to see what each day brought in terms of cancellations. When we moved back, we were told we were going to have to move about 4 times in 1.5 weeks for the park to accommodate us. Oh vie! But, as cancellations came in, we were able to stay put closer to a week or more. We are so grateful for our little piece of paradise!

Starting March 20th, Gulf County commissioners and Port St. Joe city council closed down all beaches, all boat launches and have put a moratorium on any new vacation rental reservations more or less until the end of April in response to other more populated beaches doing the same. They wanted to avoid the domino effect that we started seeing as folks just migrated around the state for beaches that were open on Spring Break. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, started putting more drastic measures on April 1st and ordered folks to shelter in place. So, good on us for getting ahead of this thing and booking our reservations through May, just in case. And as a result, we also got to stay at one of the premier waterfront sites that backs up to St. Joseph Bay! We picked up a sun tent so we could spend more time outside bug-free!

The kiddos and I do school on the second floor of the clubhouse overlooking the bay. We tried doing it outside at the picnic table, but the Wifi signal wasn’t quite strong enough for the video lessons and streaming. So, instead, each morning we head out with a towel and wipe down the outdoor furniture from all the dew, then spray it down with cleaner. Then we spray ourselves down with bug spray to keep the darn no-see-ums away! With no Spring Break to really ‘take’, the kiddos and I kept to the same schedule and they have gotten about a week ahead on school. I expect them to finish everything by the end of May, which will be great timing. I really hope we can resume our trip up the East Coast to North Carolina before we head back to Oregon in July.

A silver lining about the beaches being closed while we still have bay side access to St. Joseph Bay is that there are fewer folks to compete with for the fish! Here are some great shots of the family. Ben was the fisherman of the day and caught a Sheepshead and two Speckled Brown Trouts for dinner. Clark managed to catch about a half dozen catfish, but unfortunately those are not good eats from the bay. We also saw a bunch of dolphins (tried to catch some pictures of their fins) that swam with us for a while and a few massive sea turtles.

We ordered two inflatable tandem kayaks and some PFDs from Walmart about a week ago and they arrived as we were starting to get a little cabin fever. We have been fishing pretty much every weekend for 5+ hours per day. We’ve got other campers who are doing the same and sharing tips. We especially like the paddle footed electric chicken bait! Ben made us two anchors with his paracord and bricks we found along the beach. Izzy picked up a fishing rod this week, complete with a teal/blue accent to the rod and is bound and determined to catch us dinner!

Overall, we’re just grateful for our neighbors, some of the nicest folks we could ever ask to have along this quarantine journey. Dan and Debbie from Bloomington, IL, who play the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack- AWESOME!; Barb and Mark from Tennessee who know just about everything about whiskey, marshmallow roasting and tools; Brian and his wife from Yakima, WA who are big time weight lifters and invite us to go on crazy adventures like kayaking 12 miles across the cape or going on rogue mountain biking rides; Mike and his two girls from Alabama who play volleyball in the evening with Izzy. Folks are checking in on each other, offering to go to the store for each other, picking up shells for crafts the kids are doing for Easter, sharing home remedies for bug bites and offering socially distant marshmallow roasts.

Clark mentioned that during the Spanish Flu (1918) epidemic US citizens were quarantined for almost 120 days. Anne Frank stayed in full isolation for 761 days. Some of you may recall from my prior Port St. Joe post (Post 18 I think it was) that Yellow Fever wiped out the town of St. Joseph in the early-mid 1800s, (which is about 2 miles away from PSJ) only after they suffered after a hurricane and a massive fire. It was more than 50 years before Port St. Joe came to be a town, and it was much smaller than it’s 12,000 person counterpart, St. Joseph. It’s strange to be holing up in a town that has such a terrific history of isolation, decimation and flu epidemic. If there’s anything we have learned on this trip, it’s that if we look to history, we can always find lessons relevant to today’s challenges.

We look forward to seeing and hugging family and friends-family very soon. Until then, we just keep looking for daily laughs and adventure! Hugs!!!!