Fort Pickens-Biking, Beaches & Battlegrounds
When: Monday, February 8 to Friday, February 12, 2021 (five nights)
Where: Fort Pickens, Gulf Islands National Seashore, Sites 25 and 18 (loop A)
Cost: $40/night ($20 with a National Parks Pass) for water and electric hook-ups
Bucket Lists: Biking the Fort Pickens road along the beach
Biking: Ditto. See above. (As the lawyers say: “see, supra, Bucket List.”)
While the first part of our Pensacola trip focused on the mainland, we spent the the latter part at Fort Pickens located on Santa Rosa Island in the Gulf Island National Seashore. Because of Hurricane Sally, the main bridge was closed, making the route to our destination a little longer than we had planned (about 1.5 hours in “RV time”). However, once we arrived at Fort Pickens, it did not disappoint.
Surrounded by sand and water on both sides, the road to the campground itself is amazing. Storms had ushered in mounds of sand such that we saw a couple of bulldozers moving sand from the road. When Kasie texted her mom a photo, she thought the sand looked like piles of snow! Yes, it was that white. And beautiful.
We stayed in Loop A of the Fort Pickens campground, which has its own separate laundry, shower house, and dump station. A walking/biking trail leads to the much larger Loop B-E campground less than a half-mile away.
The highlight of our stay was the 9-mile bike ride from our campground to Pensacola Beach. Although the weather was chilly, that ride was a true bucket list experience. Blogging about the ride doesn’t do it justice. And, even though we made a pretty darn good video of the ride (which you really should watch), the video also falls short. That bike ride was just that spectacular.
Fort Pickens itself was an unexpected delight. The Fort is located within walking/biking distance of the campground (~1.5 miles from Loop A to the Fort). Large signs are scattered throughout the Fort to provide historical information on the Fort. Visitors can also use their phones to enjoy a numbered walking tour to learn details about the Fort. We learned about the construction of the massive structure, its role in the Civil War, and its repurposing afterwards. Neither Kasie nor I are huge history buffs, but seeing the Fort in person certainly made me more interested in Florida’s role in the Civil War in particular. And, I was able to satisfy my weird obsession of getting my photo taken with cannons.
Biking along the beach at Fort Pickens
The only pseudo-negative to our stay at Fort Pickens was perhaps the weather. Most of the United States, including Pensacola, was suffering from unusually cold weather such that it got down to the 30s on some nights. That was all relative to us because it reached 0°F back home in Missouri. The weather likely kept many folks away from the campground, which meant we pretty much had the beaches and Fort to ourselves. In the end, I think that the cold weather actually a plus for our overall experience. We did not have to fight any crowds and could truly enjoy Mother Nature.
Another pseudo-negative to Fort Pickens is that cell phone and internet coverage sucked. Much like the weather, perhaps that turned out to be a plus. We were forced to completely disconnect when in the RV at Fort Pickens — although we did venture out to a few breweries, which you can learn about in our next blog :-).
Other blogs/videos you might like on Pensacola:
Pensacola Song (Official Music Video) — A Classy Broads original!
Five Flags RV Park in Pensacola — A wonderful RV park!
Pensacola: Parks and Pelicans — Graffiti Bridge, Downtown Pensacola, and more!
Pensacola Breweries (Classy Beer Awards - Pensacola Edition) — We review nearly a dozen breweries in the area!
