After our stop in Savannah to visit friends, our paths diverged from our buddies.
The original intention was to stick together for a couple more stops with Nina & Paul, however with their unexpected RV & car repairs – they needed to adjust course.
We really had little interest in joining them at the repair shop (hey, we love them – but) – so we stuck with the planned stops already made.
Which meant next up, an extended stay at Crooked River State Park just north of Jacksonville, FL – where we conveniently had boat showings already lined up.
This post covers November 9 – 17.
Crooked River State Park
We’ve stayed at this park just outside of St. Mary’s, Georgia a couple of times in the past – and have always enjoyed it. But usually we’re just passing through with limited time.
With 9 nights until our next reservation, we opted to just settle down here for a spell and recharge on our own after a wonderful period of intense social time.
One of our favorite features of Georgia State Parks is that while you make a reservation in advance, all site selection is on a first come first basis. Basically, you check in, they give you a tag – and you go setup in whatever open spot you want.
So much better, for us, than trying to figure out online what site is going to serve us best. We can select based on current vegetation, distance from neighbors and privacy. And if we end up not liking our site, we can switch.
And, overall, it makes it easier to secure a spot for an extended stay – especially in state parks where many sites are booked up for 2-3 nights over a weekend, but wide open during the week.
We really wish more campgrounds would go to this method. It seems so much more flexible.
Arriving on a Wednesday, the park was pretty much empty – and we had our choice of spots. We both gravitated to site 55 – a huge deep back-in site surrounded by vegetation.
But of course, we pulled straight in the site for maximum privacy. We both felt immediately at home, especially knowing this was our spot for over a week! A glorious week on our own.
We already knew the campground was completely booked for the weekend, and we’ll take every ounce of extra seclusion we can get to ride out Weekends in Campgrounds. (And of course, as luck would have it – we had a multi-family weekend reunion setup in all of the spots around us – it was constant activity.)
Most of our time was spent in the park itself, catching up on work and Netflix – and hitting the numerous trails in the park.
Boat Shopping
We took one day to head on down to Jacksonville, about an hour away, to meet up with one of our brokers to tour the next batch on our list for the Great Loop.
We toured three different boats:
-
Silverton – beautiful boat, but way too tall. Carver 405 – very impressed with the layout, and this model will stay on our list as a contender and further research for modifying for our bridge clearance preferences.
- A Meridian 459 Cockpit – this did not float our boat AT ALL in person, even though its bridge clearance could be quite suitable.
- Silverton 453 – the layout of this pilothouse boat initially took our breath away – super spacious, well laid out and a stand-up engine room! Unfortunately, we discovered the bridge clearance is way beyond suitable for the Great Loop and not easily modifiable. It’s also probably way more boat than we actually need.
We keep narrowing down the options, and increasing our education with each day we spend looking.
Exploring St. Marys, GA
The campground is pretty much down the end of a road and nicely tucked away – making it super quiet with dark skies.
It’s also right next to a Naval Submarine Base.
A perfect place to be for Veteran’s Day, and we honored the moment with a sunset cruise offered by the park’s rangers. We puttered along the Crooked River out to the Intracoastal Waterway with a great view of the base from water.
St. Mary’s offers just enough amenities – groceries, shopping and things to do so one doesn’t get bored or feel too remote.
And we did venture into town a couple of times. On one visit, we paid a stop to the St. Mary’s Submarine Museum, which my father had been involved with while he was alive and active in the submarine vet community.
But mostly, we vegged at home in our sweet sweet surroundings.
What’s Next?
By the time you read this, we might already be out at sea heading to the Panama Canal on a cruise with my mom. We’re taking an actual, bonafide, VACATION! Woo-hoo.
No working remotely this time. This is all about taking some much needed down time and celebrating my mom’s birthday.
We have a couple posts scheduled while we’re away to continue bringing you up to date, including a stop at an old favorite.
Once we’re back in mid-December – we start getting super serious about boat shopping and getting our year-end wrap up posts out.
We would usually pick Eagle Hammock on base, a valuable retiree perk, but we like cooler weather camping at Crooked River. Its a great place of kayak. This state park has a lot of activities for the little ones. Love it!
We stayed in the rv park on the left just before the state park, it was booked up when we were there in the late winter/early spring of 2014. Really liked the ruins of the old sugar mill. Ed
I found a nice little park in the same area. Walkabout. I could not find anything in Florida for March got a recommendation from a fellow South Dakotan (domicilers) and tried it out. Family from Australia bought it, improved it and offer very economical rates. Had a wonderful time there. Explored all around St Mary’s. There is a superb fish market on the corner of of Old Still Road and Harriet’s Bluff road. Ask for the Georgia White Shrimp. And the local oysters are as good as Connecticut Salt Oysters. It is about 11 miles from you. On Thursday through Saturday there is a local fish fry place and if you drive west on Harriets Bluff from the fish market you will see bright yellow signs advertising it. Hope you have a nice vacation trip. I am in Florida now, the snowbird flock will really start filling up sites after Xmas.
Wow, would
we like to be there now ! Keepem coming !
Excited
Really cool. I loved seeing the sugar mill ruins down the road from this park and noting the differences from the Yulee ruins in Florida. I drove by but didn’t stay at the campground and didn’t know that’s how the system works there! Interesting.
🙂
Enjoy your vacation but save some for us. We’ll be transiting the canal on January 14th.
I didn’t even know they did reservations like that anywhere it does totally make sense. Have fun on your cruise!
There’s so many benefits to that reservation method.. would love to see more campgrounds switch to it.
Have a great vacation on the cruise. Terry and I have taken several cruises, usually with extended family and they are great for total relaxation with whatever level of activity you want. We’ve never been to or through the Panama Canal, but have heard it’s a fantastic trip. I hope you and Chris and your mom have a great time! Thanks for the info about Crooked River State Park; it looks like our kind of place, too.
We love cruising.. and nice break from planning things, while still traveling 🙂 And a great thing to do with a group of people.
Don’t consider the Merdian. Love to you guys & Kiki! Enjoy your vacation!!
No worries there.. that specific model held no appeal to us.
Crooked River SP is a neat place. I stayed there for several nights back in October 2014. I just looked at the map and I think I had site 43…off in that dead end section adjacent to the cottages. It was a great spot because I was walled off from everything and could even see the Crooked River in distance. The only problem was a wedding party that took all the cottages over the weekend. Live DJ, probably 100 or more people were at the reception. Nice local wedding. Great view of it all from my campsite. Not the experience I wanted. Fortunately I had other days where it was dead quiet and beautiful so it made up for it. Lots of interesting day trips around there including Cumberland Island. Just my two cents! 🙂
We were tempted by those two spots at the end of the road… but on our last visit, there was a big group at the cabins across the field – and we remembered how it could be. Otherwise, they both are great spots, if you can get into them.
Actually, lots of awesome spots in the park we would have been quite happy with
Enjoy your well deserved vacation.
Couldn’t agree more with your take about how GA state parks do their reservation system. I think the reason why other state don’t follow this lead must be because it makes TOO MUCH sense. A government thing, I suppose.
There is absolutely nothing more frustrating than arriving at a nice campground early in the week for an extended stay unable to get and then watch the best spots sitting empty because they are reserved only for Friday and Saturday night.
This system seems to reward the weekend getaway folks over those who want to (and can) spend more time relaxing and exploring, A real shame….
I think it would also be beneficial to the parks, as they’d get higher capacity rates. So often we nix a park because we can only get a Sun – Thur stay in the same site. Just a couple spots open over a weekend, increases overall availability for those us who prefer longer stays.
The Texas State Parks have a similar system, and we love it.
Of course, a balance would be having a few sites reservable for those who have a favorite or want spots near each other, and the rest ‘general reservations’.