For once the crappy weather actually worked to our advantage! The Friday before the US memorial day long weekend I managed to get a 3 day reservation at Fort Clinch State park on Amelia Island, right on the eastern Florida/Georgia border. Someone must have just cancelled because of all the rain. When we got there the park ranger told me I should go buy a lottery ticket right away!
We knew nothing about this area and it was a very pleasant surprise. Really nice park, great biking...in fact our campground was 3 miles from the park entrance. So even getting out of the park was decent ride.
There is a fort in the park (thus the name, Fort Clinch) and it’s apparently one of the most well-preserved 19th century forts in the country. If you’re interested in the history of it, check out this info. It’s open to the public so we spent a couple of hours walking around....interesting and hard to imagine how they dealt with mother nature, bugs etc way back when. Lots of hot, stinky men in uniforms, probably worn for days on end, no automatic washers and dryers...gross!!!!
The first night we were there, we forgot all about proper campsite cleanup before going to bed and left our cooler outside. At about 4 am we awoke to scrapping and snarling just outside the trailer...turned on the light and 4 raccoons were sitting around the open cooler, popping grapes! Little buggers! Scared them off and when I cleaned up the big mess they made the next day, I found grape peel everywhere. Didn’t know raccoons were that picky!
We also saw lots of armadillos. We were coming back from the beach one day and saw a few of them in woods and one crossing the road. Then at about dusk, we had one that rooted around our campsite every night. It wasn’t afraid of people either, it came within 2 feet of me one time when I was crouched down taking it’s picture. Strange little animals!
Best thing about this park stay was the weather! The sun finally came out and we got to soak it up on the beach and play in the waves. All in all, a great stay!
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