Monday, April 11, 2022- To Orlando via Fernandina Beach

      We left our hotel in Florence South Carolina a little after 9:00, figuring that we had about a six-hour drive in front of us in order to get to Orlando.  We were expecting to take our time though. 

     We crossed into Georgia and added a new state to Abby’s life-list.  Julie saw signs to Peach World, and wanted to stop there.  It was like a little country store but specializing in peach products.  She and Abby sampled a frozen peach slushie and peach fudge.  She ended up buying a peach vinaigrette salad dressing and two types of peach candy.

     Our next big stop was the Florida Welcome Center, which is almost a destination in itself.  We got our samples of Florida orange juice and got to stretch our legs.  The staff there was very helpful and cheerful too. 

     At the welcome center, we asked for directions to a quiet family beach and got the name of one that we could stop at- Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island.  It is in the north-eastern corner of the state, and apparently the island was a buffer between Spanish Florida and English Georgia, and was the site of several pseudo-military actions just before both the War of 1812 and the Civil War.  We found Main Beach on the northern end of the island, and it was pretty much what we wanted.  There were a fair number of people there, but it was not overcrowded like some of the bigger name beaches must be this week.  Abby was excited to get to a beach and we happened to have a few beach toys in the car for her to dig with.  She did put her feet in the ocean with dad, but she got clunked by a boogie board that another small child had, and she didn’t want to go back to the water after that.   Dad says the water was cold. Abby was content to play in the sand with mom.  Black headed seagulls sounded like they were laughing at us when we arrived.  A few pelicans flew by and we even saw a Chinook helicopter fly over.  We were only at the for less than an hour and Abby was getting tired.  She had taken a short nap in the car, but not as long as her usual ones, so we were ready to leave there and started making our way towards Orlando, which was still three hours away.

    We had been taking our time, but we were not expecting the slow down that we had at dinner.  We made our way through Jacksonville around rush hour and once we were south of the city we started looking for a place to eat.  We went to a Hardee’s because Julie thought of it as a “Southern” place to eat.  She had forgotten how slow they used to be.  This one was even slower and oddly empty at what the clock said was dinner time.  They were training new staff and doing each one of our items one at a time as they read the instructions off of cards.

     We arrived at our hotel in Orlando a bit later than we had planned this morning. It's a bit of a dive, but it's cheap and clean enough to flop in, and that's what we wanted.   We're on International Drive, so we're not far from the action.