Fort Clinch

Since last we blogged, we left Savannah and headed back to life in our camper.  This time we set up our little home at Fort Clinch, located at the North end of Amelia Island.  The most prominent feature of the park is not

surprisingly, Fort Clinch.  The fort was built between 1847 and 1869 and is made up of over 5 million bricks.  Most of the bricks were shipped down to Florida from the New York area.  Besides the Fort, the park features (now say it with me) miles and miles of beach.  The nearest public beach outside the park is Fernandina.  The town of Fernandina has an old historic district conveniently located a mile outside of our park.

We have had almost all of our meals at the campsite.  I have already spent more time in grocery stores during this trip than I have during the previous 20 years and I find the experience shocking!  As my brother John has said, “If the public finds out that you can find all this uncooked food so cheaply in stores, it could have a devastating effect on restaurants!”  It seems John does not recognize the words, grocery store.  Instead he calls it “that place where you can buy uncooked food”.

On the occasions that we have ventured out for “cooked food” we’ve had great experiences.  This is in great part due to my traveling companion.  Today was a travel day so we stopped at a Waffle House.  We had never been to one and they are everywhere.  As the old expression goes, “you can’t swing a dead cat around here without hitting one”.  Ok maybe that’s a Blaney expression but Waffle Houses are everywhere.  We stopped at 2:00 so the place was a quiet.  Cathy, being Cathy says to the waitress, “We’ve never been to a Waffle House, this is our first time”.  The waitress says to the other waitress who in turn says to the cook, “they’ve never been to a Waffle House before, this is their first time!”  Cathy and the waitress reviewed almost every item on the menu before deciding on waffles.

Later that same day we went to a Mexican place near the hotel we are staying at

(moving day).  You’ve never heard Mariachi music until you’ve heard a nine piece mariachi band playing “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” in a smallish restaurant.

On to The Villages!