Gulf Islands National Seashore: Fort Pickens

We drove into the campground at Fort Pickens after dark last night, so this morning I was really excited to see what our temporary home for the next day looked like.

I started with a quick walk on the trail that led out of our campsite

and to the beach. It is a nice spot with a view overlooking Santa Rosa Sound.

I even found a few interesting seashells.

We ate breakfast at our campsite and then headed over to Fort Pickens to explore.

The fort is old and parts of it are a bit creepy.

I found it to be really interesting with lots of secret passageways leading into the dark unknown.

Among the highlights was the big gun mounted on top.

While touring the fort, because we happened to be visiting on a Tuesday, we got to see the famous Navy Blue Angles in action.

I'm not the biggest fan of airplanes, but I have to admit seeing the tricks they performed and seeing them fly so close to each other in formation was impressive. After a morning at Fort Pickens we headed back to our campsite for lunch.

Post lunch it was time to head to the beach! We walked the short nature trail through the dunes to the impressive white sand beach. The water had a tropical turquoise color.

It was much different than the cloudy gray liquid I grew up swimming in off the coast of New Jersey. We dipped our piggies in the Gulf of Mexico and got splashed a little bit by the waves, but it felt too cold to go all the way in. Sierra's favorite pastime at the beach was playing in the sand.

We helped her build a small sand castle, but she really like climbing up and down

(and sometimes sliding down on her belly)

a little hill that had formed at the high tide line. She also enjoyed rolling in the sand. As far as wildlife, we saw some pelicans that flew right in front of us.

After spending a good portion of our afternoon at the beach we headed back to the campsite for dinner. After dinner we headed back down the trail from our campsite to the Santa Rosa Sound beach. We looked for shells

and were treated to a view of a heron fishing in the shallow water.