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St Marks, FL June 2019

Tuesday and Wednesday, these are my off days, so essentially, my weekend. Rob has the same weekend. We decided to get away for a couple of days, I found a B&B on Facebook a few months ago and thought it was worth looking into. They were on Booking dot com, so I booked a night. We got up early and headed out to St Marks, Fl. We go to the refuge all the time on day trips but we never stay the night. I have wanted to stay over for awhile now. We were hoping to see more wildlife if we could get up early enough. The bed and breakfast is in the town of St Marks and is the Sweel Magnolia Inn.

The beautiful door at the Inn
Breakfast room at the Inn
The start of our breakfast. The best blackberries that I have ever had!!
No meat for me, the grits were really good.
Rob’s breakfast.
The building that is now the Inn.

When we first got to St Marks, we were pretty early so we went straight to the refuge in hopes of seeing the American Flamingo that has taken up residence there. It has been there since last Fall but we haven’t been able to get there early enough to hike to where he was. To my delight when we got to the refuge visitor center they told me that he had moved and was in one of the ponds close to the road. That sounds deceiving though, he was in the pond, but a long way off. Luckily we have a spotting scope for birding and Rob was able to find him and we were able to see him. The spot that he was in, is not near a hiking trail, so there was no way to get a closer look. Because of that, we couldn’t get a real picture, but we were thrilled to see him!

Taken through the scope with my iPhone..... “proof of”.

Another bonus of going over to the refuge early was we got to tour the lighthouse for the first time. As many times as we have been there we have never been there when the lighthouse was open. They only open once or twice a month, so it was a great surprise to get to go inside and see it.

St Marks Lighthouse

The “tour guide” was an old gentleman ( had to be in his 80’s, at least!) and he took us through and gave us some info about the building. When we got to the kitchen we stopped and he was talking about the room. I was looking around and caught a glimpse of a manican that was in the other room with a black dress. It reminded me of seeing a ghost, so I asked him if anyone had seen or heard of any ghost or spirits. He changed the subject, but about that time the AC came on and the lights flickered! I looked at Rob and he smirked at me. The lights flickered again, this time for no reason! The guide didn’t want to talk about ghost......I totally believe that there are ghost there!

White Pelicans in the Lighthouse Pond

We took a walk on the first day there before the rain came.

Wonder what kind of eggs these are.....
They were very vocal
Before the rain
After the rain

After a great day in the refuge we decided to drive over to Crawfordville to find dinner and check out the town.

The old wooden courthouse
Jail
I love this building!
We grabbed some food and took it back to the Inn for dinner.

Day 2. After our great breakfast at the Inn, we went back to the refuge in hopes of seeing more wildlife and the flamingo again.

Rosette Spoonbill
Greater Yellowlegs
Tricolored heron
And otter that we were fortunate enough to see.
More rain’s on the way.

It was great spending so much time at St Mark’s NWR. Once the rain started getting heavy we decided to head toward home. There is another spot on the refuge, Bottoms Rd that we have been down before and it’s usually a pretty Dr. We stopped on the way at Rocky’ convenience store and grabbed a couple of cinnamon rolls and drinks. We stopped at the end of the road to enjoy them.

Either a clapper or king rail

After the snack, we started back out and decided to go over to Ochlockonee River State Park. We didn’t see any of the white squirrels this time but it was still a pretty side trip.

Once we left the park, we found a side road to try. It was on the gps map, and so we were off. It started out paved and as many of the old Florida roads do, it turned into a dirt road. It never got bad and I’m pretty sure it was part of Tate’s Hell and/or Apalachicola National Forrest.

Hitchhiker

It was a nice little getaway. I look forward to the next one!

Created By
Rika Boyd
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