Huguenot Memorial Park
After visiting Fort de Soto, our plan was to check out Rainbow Springs. We arrived to the Springs on an unseasonably hot day, and found the springs to be at capacity, and therefore we pivoted our plan. Sometimes it’s laughable to even make a plan while living in a van because our itinerary changes so frequently. In fact, that very day, we changed our plan twice more! First we thought we would drive back to my mom’s house in Hilton Head, about a 5 hour drive from where we were. However as we continued to drive along, I decided to do a bit more research about Huguenot Memorial Park. I knew Jacksonville was on the way back to Hilton Head, and would be a shorter drive for the day.
I thought I booked a campground site for that evening, but accidentally booked one for the next day. I called the park to see if I could change the reservation but they said they didn’t have any availability for that night. We spent one evening at the nearby Cracker Barrel campground and the next day kept our reservation for the park.
I would say probably the single most important aspect of living in the van is to have flexibility. The easiest way to stay calm is to have the ability to go with the flow and adapt as necessary. Wether it comes to searching for a place to stay, our troubleshooting issues and finding solutions to problems that may arise with the van, it is always easier to achieve if you can maintain a level head.
We didn’t know what to expect when visiting Huguenot Memorial park, other than we did expect to see a lot of birds, based on my research. We also knew there was a Driftwood Beach there. On our first evening we decided to explore the driftwood beach, as they call it Boneyard Beach. It was stunning! Beautiful soft white sand, dunes, and not crowded with people at all! There was even a large area roped off for nesting shorebirds. Although we were a bit early for plover nesting season, it was nice to see the protected area for the birds.
The next day when we got to the campground, we were surprised to see hundreds of cars driving on the beach! That evening we went out to photograph the shorebirds and see about finding the Royal Terns. At first, we mostly just saw people and cars!!! However Ray was able to get an elevated vantage point by climbing up a jetty and found further down the beach all the birds. We started making our way in the direction of the birds and just about an hour before sunset noticed the sheriff starting to begin leading the cars off the beach. We were worried thinking after they got all the cars off, that we were next, just as the light was getting beautiful! However to our surprise— because we didn’t have our van parked out on the beach, we were shocked in the absolute best way, that we were able to stay! The beach went from being an overcrowded parking lot of cars and people, to being a nature lover’s paradise with just Ray, me, and thousands of birds! There was literally not another single person on the beach! It was incredible!
The next morning we walked further down the beach and found the rookery of Laughing Gulls. It was pretty amazing to see thousands of laughing gulls preparing for nesting season! They looked beautiful with stunning breeding plumage and settled in and amongst the dunes. We also got to see some courtship behavior between Oystercatchers as well. Check out this video where Ray and I share our photos and experience there.