After a couple of days in Kissimmee it was time to move on to our next stop for the Memorial day weekend. Again, as the north Atlantic coastal area of Florida was apparently "booked solid" for the holiday weekend, we had booked the KOA at Starke, Florida for 3 nights to take us through the rest of the weekend. Keeping to the plan of staying off the interstates whenever possible, we travelled north through the Ocala National Forest on highway 19 then northeast to Starke. This was another very pretty drive and considering it was Saturday morning of the long weekend, there was really no traffic to speak of. Along the way we spotted a small roadside restaurant (well, more like a shack) with a sign advertising "real pit BBQ".
By the time we saw their sign we didn't have time to slow down and make the turn in so we had to drive about 5 miles past before we found a place to turn around with the wee trailer. Hmmm, would it be worth it... well it was, Kris had a large salad and Brian had a huge plate of ribs (it was actually only a half order but still huge).
As it turned out, being inland was not a bad thing all in all. As the weekend approached so did Tropical Storm Beryl as it came in off the Atlantic for a direct hit along the north Florida and South Carolina coasts. If we had of been able to reserve a spot at St Augustine, where we planned to visit, we would have been right in the middle of it. The storm disrupted many coastal area Memorial Day weekend plans with many event cancellations. For us, inland about 100 kms, the effect wasn't felt until Sunday evening when the storm clouds started to roll over...
The rain began later Sunday but wasn't too bad (we have had a lot heavier rains at home) then cleared Monday morning when it was just overcast for most of the morning and all afternoon. Late Monday evening the rain started again and it was continuous heavy throughout the night and into Tuesday morning. We were far enough away from the restrooms that during the night Monday we drove to the restrooms when required. Tuesday morning it was just swimsuit time while packing up as everything else would get just soaked.
So what to do when the weather starts to get a bit inclement? Sunday morning while Beryl was still a ways offshore, we drove into Jacksonville, did some window shopping at a large mall, bought a couple of more swimsuits at a Dillards outlet store and stopped at a BBQ place for lunch. The BBQ place was recommended in our BBQ Bible but it really wasn't much better than any of the chain BBQ places we have seen. For example the brisket was a bit dry, the sausage seemed to more steamed than smoked and the ribs and smoked chicken were basically ok. Not as good as the little roadside place we stopped at on Saturday.
When we got back to the KOA in Starke it was still only mid afternoon and there was still no real sign of the approaching storm so we figured we'd get in a bit of pooling. The KOA folks figured differently... approaching storm... no pool. Turned out the rain didn't hit for at least 4-5 hours after that.
Monday morning we decided to drive down to Gainesville where we drove around looking at some of the old southern antebellum houses. Very nice. Seeing as it was a holiday Monday most of downtown was closed but Harry's Seafood Grill and Bar was open so we dropped in there for lunch. Kris had a couple of most excellent fish tacos and Brian had what is now considered the best hamburger of the trip. We also tried some Creamy Sweet Corn with Grits which were very tasty.
Arriving back at the KOA mid afternoon with large patches of blue sky overhead we thought, once again, that we might get some pooling in. Not so fast there bucko... the KOA folks decided not to bother with any pool maintenance and had the pool locked up tight. Another 4-5 hours of reasonably good pooling time down the drain! It's one thing to be cautious but we thought they were just being lazy!
Anyway, Tuesday it was time to move on. Somewhere. Looking at the weather channel, it was obvious that we were in for more rain didn't matter which direction we headed. We even looked towards Atlanta but wouldn't make the Braves current homestand and they were on the road for a week and a half after that, so no sense heading that way and we didn't really want to head west yet at this time. So we decided to head directly east and go to St Augustine afterall. St Augustine is the oldest European settlement in America (1595), so has some cool history to it. Since it was a relatively short drive we thought we'd get out there late morning, have a drive around and decide whether or not to stay or to just head north if it was a case of rain here or rain there. It had started to rain quite hard during the night and was still raining in the morning. We ended up donning swimsuits as we packed up everything and got the trailer hooked up to the car. Well, after an hour of driving in the rain, the skies cleared and we arrived in St Augustine to partly sunny skies and it seemed like a good place to stay so we found the North Beach Camp Resort and set up for a couple of days... turned out to be an excellent place with huge private camp spots...
...and their pool was open!
Tuesday afternoon we drove into the historic district, had a nice lunch on the outside balcony of an old hotel then wandered along St George Street, a pedestrian only walkway with some cool old buildings along with the usual tacky tourist shops. We both bought a pair of new sandals. After working up a good sweat in the muggy hot weather we headed back to the campground for a dip in the pool and it was very nice. Later we walked across the highway to the Atlantic beach side, chatted with a couple of fellows surf casting (they caught a couple of small salt water catfish while we were there), then walked over to the Reef Restaurant and Bar for a couple of glasses of wine, calamari and crab cakes. Not to mention the cool view over the beach and ocean...
While sitting there we spotted a couple of dolphins swimming by. Cool. We chatted with the waiter and asked how blustery the weather was from the storm. He said it wasn't as bad as expected as the center of the storm hit a bit north and most of the rain and wind came more from the inland side than the ocean side. Talking with folks at the campground later we found that most of the campground emptied out Sunday morning before Beryl hit land. The campground had high winds and lots of rain but no real damage to speak of. Just some branches down.
Wednesday we went back to the historic district. We signed up for a walking tour for later that evening. Back when we were in Vicksburg we bought an annual National Parks pass and were pleased to hear, when we decided to tour the Castillo de San Marco, that it was part of the park system. Very interesting...
This fort is the oldest masonry fort standing in the continental US. The fort withheld seiges and withstood every military attack against it for over two hundred years, primarily when this area was under Spanish control.
By the time we finished walking the fort, it had become hot and muggy out so we decided to try a relatively fancy looking Spanish restaurant for lunch. The lunch was ok, but we found it hard to believe that the only dressing they would provide for a salad was a strong garlic dressing (the waiter grudgingly said they would provide some oil and vinegar).
After going back to the campground, for a late afternoon swim, we returned to the historical district for the History, Mystery, Mayhem & Murder Walking Tour. The walking tour was quite good especially since Alan, the guide, was a very good story teller as well as pointing out things the average passersby would miss. It was fun. After the tour we decided to stay in the historical district for late night munchies. Well, hardly late night, it was all of 9:30. We went into several taverns and all were basically empty with very loud music so ended up going back to the place we had lunch at the day before. Even they were on a limited "late night menu" so we settled on an order of crab cakes and a quesadilla which ended up being quite good so all's well that ends well.
Thursday we packed up and headed north to Georgia. From St Augustine it was a bit difficult staying off the freeway, but we followed highway 1 (the one we saw at mile marker 0 in Key West) into the center of downtown Jacksonville where it was a case of lots of zig and zag...turn here, go one block, turn left, go two blocks, turn right, go one block etc etc. Even so it was quite interesting and we got to see the inner bowels of Jacksonville. Not a bad looking place all in all.
Eventually we got through the city and hit the countryside heading north west toward the Georgia border. Just over the border we hit Folkston, a small community on the eastern edge of the Okefenokee Swamp. As has happened on previous occasions, we spotted a small building with a BBQ sign out front. As on those previous occasions we had to keep going to find a turn around, and once again it was all worth it. The Smoking Butt BBQ place (couldn't find any reference to it on Dr Google) is a little trailer with a good size smoker out back. The woman running the place explained how someone had come in a bit earlier and cleaned her out of the racks of ribs (she can only do 3 at a time and the next ones wouldn't be ready for about an hour) and her squash casserole so we couldn't try either of those. Kris settled on a smoked chicken dinner with beans and smoked cabbage.and Brian had a chopped pork dinner with potato salad and devilled eggs for all of $16 total, this was one of the best bbq lunches we have had in a long time. These little hole in the wall road stops are often the best...
After lunch we continued on to Brunswick, our stop for the night and week. After setting up at the very nice Coastal Georgia RV Resort we drove into Brunswick and toured around the old historic part looking at the gorgeous old houses. Some were a tad rundown but these must have been pretty cool in their day. After driving around a bit, we stopped in at the local Winn-Dixie grocery store for some dinner items. Walking around the store we discovered that we have indeed entered "grits" country as they had the better part of an entire aisle devoted to the stuff, in particular the instant varieties...
We opted for some pre-cooked peel and eat shrimp along with some good salad fixin's.
After dinner we wandered down to the lake at the edge of the RV park. We chatted with some local lads who were fishing. They didn't have much luck on this day, other than retrieving a couple of lures they spotted from the edge. On the dock, we found some fish/turtle chow (could have been bran buds for all we knew) so thew a few pieces in. Within a few minutes we had a crowd of a dozen or so Diamondback Terrapin turtles and numerous fish looking for the handouts.
Friday we toured the Georgia Golden Isles. We had a nice lunch of crab cakes in The Village on St Simons Island. The Village is a trendy little tourist shopping area about 2 blocks long ending on a cool pier where we watched several dozen people fishing and trying to net mullet with not a lot of success on this day.
After lunch we continued driving around St Simons Island and came to the old Fort Frederica. Near the entrance of the visitor center there is a large live oak with a whack of Spanish Moss hanging from it (a common scene in these parts)...
We no sooner started walking the 1/4 mile from the entrance to the remnants of the old fort that the thunder and lightening started. We opted to stay dry and headed back to the car. At least we got to watch the video telling the history of the fort. Instead of walking the fort we decided to drive out to Sea Island where we found it to be an exclusive private resort island with no riff-raff allowed... so we turned around... and then the rains began. It was a torrential downpour for the entire 15 minutes it took us to drive off of Sea Island and St Simons Island back to the mainland. The rain started to let up so we decided to tour Jekyll Island, formerly known as Millionaires Island and now a state park with a $5.00 fee just to get onto the island. We decided to pay the price and drove the loop around the island. On the east side we stopped at a very nice park area with access to the beach. This is where we finally dipped our toes in the Atlantic. The water was very warm indeed. We didn't have towels etc with us otherwise we would have done some ocean dipping even under the black looking clouds still approaching...
...probably just as well, within a half hour the torrential downpour started again as we were leaving the island. All in all, the islands exude what can only be described as this place being where a good portion of the "one percent" can afford to live.
Brunswick is also the home to large coastal marshlands which we found to be particularly beautiful...
| Back to Week 9 | On to Week 11 |
No comments:
Post a Comment