St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, Florida

April 12, 2026

When we arrived at the gate of St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, the attendant asked if we had been to the park before. Julie reflexively almost said "no", because that is the standard answer for almost everywhere we go. The answer this time was "yes, but a long time ago".

Julie had to dig out old pictures to find out exactly how many years ago it was since we had been here. The answer: 19 years. Wow, 19 years! How could that much time have passed??? Since then, our kids grew up, the world changed, and in 2019, Hurricane Michael bore down hard, cutting the peninsula in half and destroying both campgrounds. Eventually, natural forces brought back sand to heal the breach, and man-made forces did the rest of the reconstruction. A new campground was built and a new day-use area was created at the site of the old campground. There are to this day signs of continuing rebuilding on the rest of the peninsula with beach enrichment projects and lots of new huge beach houses dotting the shore.

A little detour down memory lane...

The old campground, back in the days when we had a pop-up and our trusty Honda Odyssey (aka "The Big Blue Van")

We all looked a lot younger!

Alas, this campground is no more

Ok, back to 2026...

Our travel day was rainy and cool (upper 50s), but aside from a little more rain on Wednesday, the rest of the days were sunny and in the 70s.

A rainy travel day

Sharknado stragglers?

It was a little dreary crossing this causeway in the rain

In the past, we have had to wait for sheep, cows, and even bison to clear the road. They walk kind of slow, so it can take a while. We weren't stopped by any birds here, but...can't they just fly away?

An amazing sunset lit up the campground that night

The new campground (complete with fancy-schmancy full hookups) is not nearly as rustic as the old one

While the campground lacked the rustic charm and vegetation of the original, it was situated very close to the boardwalk leading to the beach. And while the dunes had probably moved around a bit, the white sand beach was just as gorgeous as ever. We spent most of our time just lounging around and walking the beach.

This was one of our beach walks

Sunrise from our deck

The campground views are much more open then they used to be

The nice new boardwalk to the beach

Looking back at the campground from the boardwalk

A group of seagulls posing for a family portrait

Love the white sand in Florida's panhandle!

A cute cabin along the path to the bay side of the peninsula

Wednesday was cloudy, so we walked a nature trail that would be a bit too hot on a sunny day.

Some more random shots...

Didn't know there were armadillos here in Florida!

Nature in action

Rick got a little bored when Julie decided to hunt for shells

One day we walked *forever* and still didn't reach the point 😉

These shells look like butterflies! Julie couldn't just leave them on the beach. Someday she thinks she'll make something out of them.

That's all for now!

Psych! ...here's a couple more sunset shots that Julie had to sneak in after the blog was published 😉...

Lots of people fishing. We saw one of them catch a small shark!

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