St Augustine Tour--February 17

We set off for St Augustine after breakfast. But first we have to stop to check out the coquina quarry. Coquina is a stone made of shells that have been cementered together by silica over the years. When quarried it is still soft and shapable, aged for a year it is hard. It was used in the fort and absorbed the cannonballs rather than shattering. Not much left of the quarry.

Once in St. Augustine the hardest part is finding a place to put the RV. While the trolley tours offer free parking, they don’t offer a space that’s amenable to parking the RV. We find a place on the street where we JUST fit within the lines and can pull far enough forward that we can be sure we can get out. We take the Ripley’s on-and-off tour, hopping off at the Hugenot Cemetery (can’t get in so we circle it) and back on in the middle of old town, off again at the Basilica and back on, off at the Castillo (which we remember from freezing there many years ago). It’s a lovely town but really small.

We head north to Jacksonville on Hwy A1A, which leads us to the St. John’s ferry, which will cut hours off our trip. Sadly the ferry is closed from February 3 to 23. We don’t discover this until we turn onto the final road to the ferry. We turn around and take the long way, which is now much longer because we cut so far inland.

Fort Clinch State Park at Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island is our destination. Nice campsite but not as nice as Anastasia Island. We are within 100 feet of the beach, which is loaded with shells. There are 2 other View/Navions in the campground, so we are among compadres. There is a different set of people who choose to RV in small units; they tend to be travelers rather than stayers, they tend to be more like us, and it’s interesting to discuss where they have been and what changes/problems they have with their ‘rig’. One couple we meet has been to Alaska in their Navion. Both Navions are the same model as we have.

We have our first campfire of this trip. We bought the wood weeks ago but haven’t been in a place that seemed amenable to a fire. We are now officially camping.