As we usually do, my husband and I took the opportunity to wander all of Florida during our visit. Along with dining on our favorite local delicacies and taking in all the holiday offerings, we ventured to locales familiar and new (well, to him, anyway).

Octagonal View

For me, visiting Florida in the middle of pandemic was both a bit strange and a familiar comfort. I felt as safe as I could be, as I knew we could spend the majority of our time outside (and do so comfortably). Plus, we stayed with my dad, who has been diligent in staying safe during the pandemic. We spent a week and a half down there after taking the train for a few days.
 

We started off by visiting a couple beaches in the Fort Pierce area. Our first beach was Frederick Douglass, a beach we've visited several times before and know is pretty quiet. This visit was no exception, something we very much appreciated. I realize that by revealing the name of this place I run the risk of enticing more people to visit it. I'm willing to risk it, especially since it's already know as a horse beach. My husband and I tend to wander the northern end more, though. That's where we tend to spot more of the local wildlife.

Normally we see birds and the occasional man-o-war. This time around, though, we saw crabs. Lots of crabs. We could have spent the whole day watching them skitter in and out of the waves rolling onto the shoreline. We saw these guys both at Frederick Douglass and at Avalon State Park. Avalon is very similar to Frederick Douglass in terms of wildlife and (lack of) crowds. However, the two beaches do have some key differences. Frederick Douglass is maintained by the St. Lucie County Parks department, while Avalon is a state park. The other difference is water temperature. My husband and I stuck our feet in the water at both beaches. The waters at Avalon were noticeably cooler. It seems that Fort Pierce (in particular the inlet there) serves as a geographical dividing line for the climate of South/Central Florida.

Our outdoor adventures brought us inland, as well. I'd visited Jonathan Dickinson State Park a few times as a kid but hadn't been there in decades. After our 2018 visit, my husband and I agreed we needed to stop over there on a future trip. Well, the future showed up earlier than we expected. We were far from the only people who had the same idea. In fact, we had to wait in line just to pay our admission fees! It was a very popular place the day we visited (even with the unexpected downpour in the middle of our time there). We didn't see too many mammals, but the bird watching was top notch that day.

I do sometimes worry a bit about the future of Florida's natural spaces given that people keep moving down there. The baffling demand/desire for fancier houses with more space means homes are encroaching on undeveloped land in many parts of the state. This has the unintended effect of making what was previously considered the westernmost part of a county's residential areas suddenly feel more central (and kind of dated). I noticed this when we ventured down to Palm Beach County, in particular the towns of Greenacres and Wellington. My mom's parents lived there for a little over a decade, so I spent a lot of time there as a kid.

We ventured down that way for what I dubbed the Nostalgia Tour. I took some time to revisit some of the places I frequented in my childhood. To my surprise, these locales aged fairly decently, even though the last time I was at any of them was twenty-some odd years ago. It felt good to go back and see these places. They were not the only parts of Palm Beach County we visited, though. We went to downtown West Palm Beach for Sandi Land and wandered a little ways along Clematis Street, something I never did when I lived there. It was a bit crowded for my taste, but the fountains were cool. In the end, it was good to return. I know that these holiday visits will not last forever, and I'll have to decide how to handle the time in my life when they come to an end. I hope I have another decade (or two) before I have to figure that out.