Thursday, February 13, 2003
We broke camp and started the drive to Big Lagoon State Park just south of Pensacola, Florida about 9 a.m. We chose to drive the two lane highway close to the coast rather than I-10 further north, and we found that many coastal sections east of Panama City were undeveloped whereas the sections west to Pensacola were more moderately developed. We stopped in Panama City to try to take a Volksmarch, only to find that the start/finish point, the St. Andrews Coffee House, was closed for the upcoming holiday weekend.

Keeping the speed down allowed us to see more of scenery, but the cost was a very long day of driving, so we were both pretty tired when we arrived at Big Lagoon State Park around 3:30. We set up the tent and walked part of the Volksmarch in the park before turning in for the night. An armadillo came snuffling around our campsite before dinner, and he was rooting around so deeply that he had an entire layer of needles and brush covering his back as he moved around. What we saw was a moving mound of forest floor complete with snuffling sound effects. In a way, it was like an animal submarine cruising the forest floor.

A second visitor after dinner was a raccoon who was so brazen that he almost walked up to the table across from me. He really was less than five feet and still approaching until I started to shine a light at him and yelled. Raccoons seem to respond to “Git”, altho I imagine it is more the tone of voice than anything else. We again put all the food under lock and key and were apparently successful as in the morning we found just one plastic bottle batted around but nothing else disturbed. I scored that as a victory for us, so the box score for Raccoon Encounters now is Raccoons 3, Holts 3.