FIRE! Fire!

A dramatic week with ourselves and our RV narrowly escaping  fiery death.  We arrived in Ochlockonee State Park in the Florida Panhandle. It was a lovely park - small, quiet and with lots of wildlife around and good 3G and TV reception (rare in a state park).  The end morning we went for a walk and saw a canebrake rattlesnake lying on the road (an omen as we were to discover). Then back where we had come, Wendy spotted some smoke and then a helicopter came roaring over to take a look see. We decided to wander back and as we got closer to our RV saw that there was a raging forest fire in the vicinity, but on the other side of the road to the campground.  We got back and I talked to a fireman who I saw and he said it was a managed burn-off, which is done periodically to encourage new growth. It was quite close to our RV but we were separated by the road (or so we thought). We went inside the RV and had a cup of tea, and then suddenly Wendy say some flames just metres from our RV. We went out to investigate and discovered that the flames had jumped the road and were building quickly into an inferno. We went back inside and tried to gather what valuables we could, but the flames were growing ever bigger.  We were not sure we would be able to get away, so we just grabbed the car keys and headed for the door, just as a firetruck pulled up. They quickly got out a  hose and started watering the base of the flames

We rushed to the car and quickly drove away to the ranger station where we expressed our displeasure at not being notified about a planned burn, as we had left all our windows open and the RV was full of smoke. They offered us a refund and some free boat trips at bother state park which we accepted as a form of compensation and we returned to see what damage had occurred. We were safe but the surrounding park was burnt to the ground.

It took days for the smoke smell to disappear.  Next day we went to Wakulla Springs to take advantage of the free boat tours. Wakulla Springs was where several Tarzan movies were made and also Creature of the Black Lagoon. It is very pretty.

The park ran some lovely boat trips and went on two and were lucky to see wild manatees swimming around and of course lots of gators and turtles as well as lots of bird life. A great day, but it was time to move on along the coast another couple of hundred miles to  Panama City, a popular beach resort. We stayed at  another State Park, right on the beach with the water almost lapping our RV. The sands were gleaming white and the sun continued to shine as it has done for weeks now.

On one day we drove up North to near Destin to Eglin Air Force Base Armament Museum which had a very interesting display on the history of air munitions. We saw cruise missiles, sidewinder missiles and lots of different size bombs as well as a huge collection of aircraft including the Flying Fortress Below.

Today we have left Florida alas, and arrived in Mobile, Alabama.  More on that next week.