Walking on Appalachian quartz ...Florida Panhandle

Wow what a difference a week makes...Its my kind of weather now...I don't know about you all...but perfect weather for me is mid sixties to low seventies...Sunny of course.

So being a bit warmer we took a few Dune-beach walks.

Mushrooms in Florida...Yipee....didnt eat these!
Aren't they just Divine.

through the woods...some water

A freshwater lake..


Past the water...Dunes
white sand...


Why is the Sand White along the Beaches in Destin Florida?

The sand here on the Emerald Coast is among the whitest, cleanest and softest in the world. What you might not know, is that when you walk on the beaches here, you are actually walking on the mountains - the Appalachian Mountains, that is.

The sand on the Emerald Coast beaches is comprised mainly of quartz washed down from the mountains by the Apalachicola River, 130 miles east of Ft. Walton Beach. It is this quartz, ground to a perfect oval in each grain of sand, that makes the beach "squeak" when you walk on it.

Normally, such quartz has a rosy pink tint because of it's iron oxide coating, but the sugary-white quartz of the Emerald Coast lost it's coating somewhere along it's watery journey thousands of years ago. No one knows exactly how or why.

So there ya go...I am hiking on the Appalachian Mountains...tee hee..

oh...look over the dunes...lets go there!


So Far in this part of the panhandle I am not finding shells, at least whole ones...
Just bits and pieces...
I did find an old Indian Bead...ha...that is my story and I am sticking to it...
I will take a photo of the bead...and post it later.

Oh ....Whats this hiding in the sand?


A sweet little Snowy Plover

and
This Great Blue Heron was not so shy

Well...
That's all for now....Tomorrow we move Homey to Grayton Beach State Park.

Goodbye for now from my Hiking Boots..


See ya....