ST. GEORGE ISLAND STATE PARK

St. George Island State Park. What a trip this was for us! It is not easy to snag a camping spot last minute at Florida State Parks… like nearly impossible, really. Somehow we managed to do it! St. George Island is about a nine hour drive for us, so we impulsively booked the site, packed up our tiny car, and made the trek down. Unfortunately we arrived around 10pm or so, so it was very dark outside. We quickly set up the tent and got settled in for the night to avoid mosquitos. We had heard there were rats at this park, so I spent the drive down researching ways to keep them out of your site. We were genuinely concerned. (haha). It turns out… the rats weren’t what we needed to be worried about, which you’ll read about here later.

We woke up that morning, and Vinay wasn’t feeling well. It seemed to be heat sickness. We went ahead and headed to the beach to cool off, but he couldn’t shake it, and it was hot outside (of course). The problem with tent camping in a hot climate is sometimes you can’t easily find a spot to cool off for long periods of time, if needed. Anyways, St. George Island is very small and does not have regular hotels. We found ONE room available at a little inn in the middle of town. It was, of course, quite expensive, but Vinay needed a place to cool off and rest, so we booked it.

The next morning, we headed to the beach. It was a lovely day of swimming in the ocean. We went back to our tent that night and got settled in… here comes the part of the trip that we should have actually worried about… I picked up a shirt I had left on the floor of the tent, and it was covered in fire ants. I looked around and found the trail. THE FIRE ANTS HAD CHEWED HOLES IN THE TENT (AN REI KINGDOM TENT!!) AND WERE COVERING OUR MATTRESS. Gah. So gross. We called the state park rangers to ask if they had any advice. They brought over some supplies to help detour the ants, but it was too late. We had to throw away our mattress, some clothes, and our tent, since we couldn’t drive back with fire ants in our car. Sooooooo… it was night TWO, back to the inn. They were actually all booked up, but they had a tiny little room with bunkbeds they had been renovating, and they graciously allowed us to stay (at a price, of course).

We were starving, so we headed across the bridge to get pizza at Eastpoint Beer Company. It was DELICIOUS. Like literally some of the best pizza I’ve ever eaten.. or maybe I was just starving, I don’t know. haha. We took the pizza to-go and drove over to a little spot to watch the sun set over the bay. It was beautiful!

From there, it was time to head home. A quick trip that took us on quite the rollercoaster. We learned some lessons, had some good times, had some bad times, but overall - felt the peace of the ocean. We will have to go back one day and redeem ourselves!