August 21, 2016
Again, research might have helped in this situation but hind sight is 20/20. When I made my original plan for this excursion it was to go solely to Amelia Island. I always associated the Island with a lighthouse so when I asked my uncle if he wanted to go to Amelia Island with me, my vision was a small, quaint island with a lighthouse in the middle that you could climb.
As we drove over the bridge, we spotted to the left of us, this long pier that people were fishing from and discovered that it was the George Crady Fishing Pier. I am not into fishing so we decided that seeing it from the road would be sufficient. Not that I am closed to the idea of walking it one day, it just wasn’t going to be that day. I think at that point I was getting pretty tired.
Over to the right was Amelia Island State Park, interesting! Nothing like I imagined but it did look pretty cool because you could actually drive on it, if you had a truck or something like that. This looked like a perfect place to have a beach day but that is not my type of trip so getting the glimpse of the beautiful island filled my curiosity, we headed to Fort Clinch.
The grounds at Fort Clinch were beautiful! We did not actually go to the fort though but I would like to return in October to do a candlelight tour which should be a very unique experience. We did go and check out the camping area and walked along the soft sandy shore, looking for shark teeth, with no luck. At some point in our exploration we did find the lighthouse across the water. It seems as if we only scratched the surface of these amazing places! I am really looking forward to visiting a few of them again, I must climb that lighthouse. It’s a good thing my uncle and aunt live close enough so I can stay over and explore throughout the years!
We almost missed out on this last park because according to the internet, it was closed. Thankfully neither one of us take no for an answer so the search went on for Yellow Bluff Fort. There it was, tucked away in a neighborhood. It was not actually a fort at it, it was a camping ground for soldiers during the Civil War. It was small, pretty and quiet, perfect for the last park of the day. It was only about ten minutes from the house which was great because 8 state parks and 1 city park in a day, while exciting, was also exhausting! It was so worn out I had to take a nap before heading back to DeLand!
