Big Lagoon


Penny and I played hooky today and went on an explore. It was a perfect day and hey, we can do it!


We drove over to Big Lagoon State Park. (http://www.floridastateparks.org/biglagoon/)
During my channel surfing on TV when I was healing I ran across one of those tourist information shows that talked about this State Park. It looked interesting. So today, sort of as a dry run for our upcoming vacation we headed off to the park.


We had no schedule to keep so on the way we drove over to Navarre Beach to see how it looked after the hurricanes. There is a lot of damage still evident out there. Except for a 10-foot berm that they have made the whole area is flat. All the dunes, on both sides of the island are gone. There is an incredible amount of construction in progress also. This includes some very tall condos. The road through the national seashore is closed so we had to back-track back across the bridge and go west on hwy 98.


We don’t take 98 that often because it becomes a parking lot twice a day. Other times it is just plain dangerous. We are always amazed at how much development has occurred on that stretch of road. Where there was once nothing, now there are Wal-Marts, Lowe’s, Publix, new churches and new housing developments. Of course there are many more stoplights.

We stopped on the west side of Pensacola to pick up some sandwiches for lunch. We got to the park just about lunch time, rolled down the windows, listened to our book on tape and ate our sandwiches with a view of the water. The park is just recovering from severe hurricane damage. Most of the walkways were new and the observation tower was freshly renovated. Most of it was new wood. The park is a good place for boating and swimming. It is right on the Florida border and has a view of the bridge to Perdido Key.


As you can see from the pictures it is flat land with saw grass and slash pines. Besides the lagoon there is a small lake and, of course, the mouth of Perdido River and associated beaches. This could be a neat area to kayak too if we run out of places in FWB.

We spent about 2 hours at the park. Then we went to a couple of fabric shops in P’cola to find fabric for Christy to reupholster her office chairs. 2 stores and 2 phone calls later the fabric was ours.


Then it was time to head home. We got back around 3:45. All in all it was a fun day. Penny and I like to go off and explore and take pictures. Penny got a good butterfly picture, too. She got close up and personal with a Blue Heron, too.