Fort Clinch State Park, Fernandina Beach, FL December 2-15, 2013

Fort Clinch is a large park located on the north end of Amelia Island and has water on three sides. One campground is on the beach on the Atlantic, Fort Clinch sits on the northern tip of the island at the mouth of St. Mary's River, and the river campground is nestled in the forest on the river side. Although the fort was only partially completed, it served as a military post during the Civil War, Spanish-American War, and World War II. The location of the fort was chosen to protect the natural, deep-water port of Fernandina – the eastern link of Florida’s only cross-state railroad. The fort is open to visitors and there are rangers to answer questions about the history of the area and have interesting stories to impart to those interested. There are several walks and historic sites in the park that are also enjoyable.

The Land Rover

The Land Rover

Handmade Teardrop Camper

Handmade Teardrop Camper

Beautiful truck

Handmade Teardrop Camper

We had visited the fort and walked some of the trails the last time we visited, and this time we had no particular plans other than driving to St. Simons Island for the day and visit our favorite restaurants – Palmer's Village Cafe and Sal's Neighborhood Pizzeria. JB, the chef at Palmer's, does miraculous things with food. It is always well worth the nearly four hour round trip to have breakfast there. They do other, more traditional breakfast items as well, but I have made it a practice to order the special no matter what it is and I've never been disappointed.

We had a couple of unusual camping rigs come in during our stay: one was a proper Land Rover with a cool camping unit in the back and the other a teardrop camper and 1952 Chevy truck. The Land Rover was a unique unit and there is a blog that gives all the statistics. The folks who travel in it are from Australia and have the vehicle shipped from continent to continent. The Chevy-Teardrop unit was the antithesis to the completely utilitarian Land Rover. The owner had rebuilt the truck from the ground up and while it looked original on the outside, the engine was a 350 and had had made some other alterations under the hood as well. The teardrop trailer was beautifully crafted with some nice innovations to set it apart from the commercially built units.

We were there two weeks and the middle weekend was completely disrupted by the noisiest, least diciplined Cub Scout troop we've ever had the misfortune to camp near. We have heard from many rangers and campground hosts that any time they have a scout troop or church group expected, they cringe. To be fair, we had a troop of boys camped near us at Petit Jean State Park in Arkansas and you would never have known they were there!

Yarn Winder

For my birthday back in October, Rich had bought a yarn winder, which I had wanted for some time. It's a great little device and works like a charm to make flat-bottomed balls of yarn that pull from the center. Much better than hand winding! Now I just have to get back to work getting some blankets crocheted!

Flat-Bottomed Yarn Ball

Although we caught some nice fish the last time we were here, we were skunked this time, so will have to put off the fresh fish dinner.

From here, we travel to Stephen Foster State Park in White Springs, just north of Lake City. We had heard lots about the Christmas decorations and were about to see if they were as good as reputed.

(BTW: In case I haven't groused about the lousy photo placement options in blogger, consider it done. I haven't use such such archaic software in years. I've got to find better software.)