September 23 to September 28, 2016—Northeast Florida coast, Jekyll Island to Little Talbot
Another postscript regarding Jekyll Island. Before we left we made acquaintance with Jan and Mac, a really nice couple who invited us into their luxurious motor coach. (It had a refrigerator better than the one in my house.) We enjoyed talking with them, comparing notes about our lives and travels. They were one of many folks who winter over in Jekyll, October to spring. I’ll talk later about our adventures with hurricane Matthew but Jekyll Island came under mandatory evacuation orders during the storm, temporarily scattering the whole camp.
After Jekyll (which, in yet another postscript, is where the design of the Federal Reserve System was hashed out between government reps and the nation’s gazillionaires in a secret meeting) we made a series of short hops down the coast. Each place was interesting or strikingly beautiful in its own way.
First stop was just south of Cumberland Island National Seashore, on Amelia Island, Fort Frederick State Park. Amelia Island is a popular destination for people, with beaches, shopping, and the little town of Fernandina Beach. Fernandina Beach has Florida’s oldest bar which we couldn’t not visit. Had gin and tonics and a banana which we bought from a little guy who hangs around the bar playing harmonica and selling bananas. He played “Oh Susanna” and “Camptown Races.”
A freight train crept through the little town and had some kind of problem which caused it to have to back up and inch forward many times over the course of half an hour blocking traffic right in the center of town. It was kind of comical, people displaying different degrees of agitation or resignation.
One of Amelia Island’s claims is the only place to have flown under eight different flags. Even tho at least two of the flags were not actual countries (a pirate navy allied with the Mexican Government; an American militia) each flag had to be forcibly removed by the next guy with a different flag which I think makes each one valid as a legitimate occupation.
We toured Fort Frederick, a star-shaped affair; a massive brick castle, with thick walls and interesting architectural features found only in forts—crenellations and ramparts, giant gates, etc.
There was a uniformed Union army interpreter. He refused to get out of character so you had to pose your questions as if you were in the 1860s. He called General Sherman “Uncle Billy.” He was mildly informative but every time you asked a question he had a canned recitation that started somewhere far away from the point of inquiry and took a long time to get around to it. (“Where do you go the bathroom?” “My day starts at 6am as I rise from my canvas and rope bed, put on my workday uniform made of wool from….”) Press ‘start’ to hear narration again.
The waters from Cumberland inlet meet the ocean here and the currents are strong and treacherous. I went into the water a little ways to cool off and, floating, started drifting at a fast clip. I found a coprolite on the shore. That’s fossilized poop to you.
When we were in Acadia NP in Maine, I called Brenda to look at a weird phenomenon—just after sunset bright little points of light were scattered in the nearby trees. I thought it was some kind of lightning bug that didn’t blink. Turned out to be some asshole with a laser light contraption attached to his monster RV that scattered pinpoints of bright green light all over the freaking place. He was very pleased that he had tricked us and laughed with this high “tee-hee” at every opportunity. He said he saw this contraption somewhere and “just had to have one.” Nature isn’t good enough by itself for some people. Anyway, the guy next to our campsite in Fort Frederick had the same bloody light gizmo and I swear he had the same pervert laugh. People kept stopping by his site expressing wonder and admiration at the obnoxious display. Get me out of here.
A little southern Gothic scene occurred at Florida’s oldest bar. A guy in his late thirties wearing the white linens of a restaurant cook comes into the bar and orders a double shot of tequila, downs it looking over his shoulder. Suddenly asks the bartender, sotto voce, for a non-alcoholic drink to go, “a soda or something.” Bartender serves it up as an older woman (his mother?) comes over to the guy in white and says, “what are you doing here?” “Just getting a cold drink to go.” They leave, the woman returns thirty seconds later and asks the bartender “what did he have?” Bartender answers truthfully, “a tequila and a coke.” Woman nods, looks around the bar thoughtfully and leaves. Several possible interpretations.
After a few days here we moved an hour down the coast to Talbot Island State Park. I had reserved a site on the edge of the camp that looked out over the grassy estuary that flooded twice daily with the tide. When I booked the site the description warned that this particular site was vulnerable to flooding if the tide was particularly high but it never rose that much and made for a beautiful place to camp.
We did all the trails, walked miles on the beach, rented bikes for a day and visited nearby inlets and rode on the beach. At one point a storm threatened and even tho it didn’t hit us a single bolt of lightning struck close and unexpectedly, so close that we could smell burning in the air for minutes. Brenda was outside and I was inside at the time. I came out half-expecting to find her on the ground. She was shaken but okay and thought I took too long to come out to investigate. The debate over exactly how much time transpired will go on forever, I fear. I might have taken a moment to gather my thoughts on what emergency actions might be called for, seconds at most. It isn’t like I continued making sandwiches.
Exotic birds of all kinds, always one within sight. Palms of various kinds and heights dominate the woods interspersed with towering pines.
We spent part of a day at the Ribault Club, a few miles down the road. It was a club, an exclusive Jekyll Island type resort in the 1920s that didn’t survive the Great Crash. After several changes of hands it became state property and a historical park with miles of trails, which is why we went. The original clubowner, some northern industrialist, had built and maintained a large golf course. The sand traps were already there, all he had to do was clear a bunch of palms and pipe water all over the damn place to keep up the greens. Money was no object. You can still detect the outlines of the course and the waterworks. The park hosts a large colony of gopher tortoises, the Florida state reptile.
Interesting fellows, the size and shape of a GI helmet, they excavate and live in deep burrows with many side passages. Something like 300 other species (insects, rabbits, snakes, squirrels, other reptiles) make use of these burrows for their own purposes–storing food, I imagine, getting out of the weather, trysts.
The original occupants of northeast Florida, the Timucua, had a principle village where the Ribault Club stands. By accounts they were statuesque, peaceable, into decoration and dancing. The only thing missing was Christianity, apparently. The Spanish bought them diseases which reduced their numbers over the course of the 16th century from 200,000 to 50,000. By 1700 there were a thousand Timucua and then there were none. Everywhere we have traveled there is a similar demoralizing tale to be told. The decimation of the first peoples seems to be the common thread running through our trip, I’m sorry to say.