With Jacksonville behind us, we continued up the coast towards our next stop, Fort Clinch. Aside from knowing that we wanted to drive the Outer Banks eventually, we never really planned out a route or stops along the way. Rather, we’d pull up GoogleMaps and look for areas of green, which are usually either parks or golf courses. That’s how we found Hanna park, Fort Clinch, and many other that we haven’t yet written about (we are running a backlog of about a month.) Anyhow, along our drive to Fort Clinch, we noticed just such an area, and then saw a sign for it – Kingsley Plantation. We were doing fine on time, and so decided to check it out. The drive out there took us down a long dirt road that was covered by a tunnel of old oaks, palms, and other trees whose names I don’t know – real Florida stuff.
The kids were both sleeping when we arrived, so we killed time cutting up the outdoor carpet we just bought at Costco for $18, which we use to cover the carpet that is in the front of the RV. Kind of like those people you see that have plastic sofa covers to protect their couch. With that task complete, we woke the kids and walked around the Kingsley plantation. The main house is mostly the original materials, so they keep it locked up to prevent excessive wear. They even have signs asking you not to touch the doorknobs, as they are original, too. They did have some staged rooms over in the kitchen that we could look in. The house sat on a river, and had about 20 slave quarter buildings arranged in a semi-circle sitting inland a couple hundred yards. The slave quarters were in rough shape, with only the tabby (think concrete, but with oyster shells instead of rocks) walls left standing.
Once the kids were done walking round, we continued up to Ft. Clinch, arriving in time to walk the beach that evening.
The next day, we set out to see everything there in the park, so we loaded up the kids in the bike trailer and started pedaling. First we hit the beach on the Atlantic side, then the fishing pier, then the actual Fort, and finally back to our campsite. The Fort itself was very open in that you can walk down most of the tunnels that run throughout the complex. Most of the buildings on the interior were also opened and are stocked with props to see what it was like back when the place was in use. The first weekend of each month (a few days after we planned on leaving), volunteers dressed in period garb come out and operate the bakery, blacksmith shop, and a few other functions of the Fort. And they shoot cannons, which I would have liked to see.
That evening Jennifer threw some ingredients in the crockpot so that dinner would be done when we got back from our evening stroll on the beach. Some quinoa, turkey, chili kind of concoction that she found on Pinterest. It turned out to be one of the better things she has made. We just made it again the other night in Lake Sherando, VA, and it was every bit as good as we remembered.
While on the beach we met Ryan and Justin, two dudes that were in the early stages of their big cycling trek from Daytona Beach to Seattle. I believe their website is destinationnowhere.com, but nothing comes up. Maybe it is destinationunknown.com or something similar. That or they haven’t gotten the site up yet; we know how that is. Anyhow, nice guys and we wished them the best.
We really liked Fort Clinch and would have stayed another night if they weren’t completely booked that Thursday and through the weekend. On our way out of the area, Jennifer wanted seafood, so we backtracked into the historic district of Fernandina and ate at Timoti’s Seafood Shak – a place that had good reviews and, more importantly, a pirate ship playground.
