Before I get to today’s blog, I need to share a perk of our current house sit. After we sent our daily note to our homeowners yesterday afternoon, they told us to watch for the weekly sailboat race that takes place in the bay behind the house. We got a couple of pics from the backyard.
It is so chill here, so that is the type of race you can appreciate and not destroy the serene surroundings. After that, we lost WiFi/TV for the night (neighborhood cable issue), so that was less fun.
On with today’s news…. One of the things to do near Niceville according to a Google search is a visit to Fred Gannon Rocky Bayou State Park. It costs $5 per car for up to 8 people and it was less than a 10 minute drive from the house, so we headed there today. The next few days look to be rainy/stormy here.
The state park was established in 1966 on land that had been used as a training area for the nearby Air Force base. In fact, it was a major site for gunnery and bombing practice during WWII. Remnants of bombs dropped at that time still exist on the grounds.
Fred Gannon was the Director of Civil Engineering at Eglin Air Force Base in the late 1950s and proposed to convert the former military practice range into a public use area, as it was by then in too urban of an area to be used for training.
We walked the three short hiking trails in the park — .75 miles, 1 mile, and .5 miles.
that runs through Niceville.
There was a lot of this along the trail.
A sign describes it as a fungus and algae
that live together for mutual benefit.
We should all be more like deer lichen!
but the lily pads were covered in white flowers.
similar to those dropped from Eglin Air Force Base
in training to fight in WWII.
We always like to bring our homeowners a locally made gift from our prior housesit. So in preparing for our upcoming housesit in Wisconsin, we stopped at the very cute Salt and Story Bookstore to see what they had to offer. We found something for our homeowners and an insulated water bottle for me (I had to toss my old plastic bottle.) that says Niceville on it, as I am taken with the name. Maybe it will help soften my rough edges.
of the second room of the store.
The room has some merchandise but also looks
like it could be used for classes and/or events.
Peckish Travels 