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Cherie Graves Florida State Parks
Florida State Park Triple Play
Camp Helen State Park visitor center
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Florida State Parks
Florida State Park Triple Play
Camp Helen State Park
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Florida State Parks
Florida State Park Triple Play
Deer Lake State Park sand dunes
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Florida State Parks
Florida State Park Triple Play
Deer Lake State Park
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Florida State Parks
Florida State Park Triple Play
Grayton Beach State Park sunrise
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Florida State Parks
Florida State Park Triple Play
Grayton Beach
Story & photos courtesy Florida State Parks
Three parks that are a must visit while in the Sunshine State
Just south of Highway 98 along Florida’s Gulf Coast lies the edge of the earth where lapping waves and shifting sands create a mutable shore, a place fashioned and refashioned by wind, water and warm southern sun, a place where the horizon meets infinity. In this place, visitors can almost “have sight of Proteus rising from the sea or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.”
A gap in the beachfront condos and resorts along Florida’s Gulf coast between Panama City Beach and Sandestin provide a glimpse of what driving to Florida must have been like in the days before Interstate highways and chain motels.
Grayton Beach, Camp Helen and Deer Lake state parks preserve a vision of a simpler Florida with unblemished stretches of white-sand beach and the surf’s stress relieving white-capped white noise.
Hiking trails wind around white sand dunes. Scrub oaks twisted by salted winds give the woods an eerie Middle Earth look. The quiet, peaceful beaches provide all the right elements for visitors who want to catch a fish or a poem. If anglers at Deer Lake State Park and Camp Helen State Park don’t like the catch of the day in the surf, they can take a short walk to try their luck in freshwater.
Deer Lake State Park shares the name with a freshwater coastal dune lake within its boundaries. Spring azaleas line blackwater streams. Summer wildflowers splash color around cypress domes throughout the sandhills and longleaf pine habitat. A trail from the lake opens to a field of dunes that slope to a beach so luminous in the sunshine it seems almost sacred. For the student of nature, the park provides a wonderland with 11 distinct natural communities.
Camp Helen State Park is located on an unusual geological landform bordered on three sides by water – the Gulf of Mexico, Phillips Inlet and Lake Powell. Anglers can cast in salt or fresh water, in three bodies of water, for an hour, for a day, for the fun, for the peace, for the glory.
For those who want to wrap themselves in a star-strewn night, Grayton Beach State Park offers full facility campsites and 30 cabins. For those with an academic inclination, interpretive programs during the summer provide information about the area - its history, life forms and natural communities.
The parks are open from 8 a.m. to sunset year-round and all three parks are located along scenic highway 30A, a winding beachfront road south of U.S. Highway 98.
Find more information and reserve a campsite or cabin at www.FloridaStateParks.org.