Heading North

Back on the road again! This morning, we did the necessary packing and loading of the van and were on the road by 9:10. Thank God we’re traveling on our own, since with most of Jessie & Chris’ stuff, the minivan is packed full – must be all of the Disney swag. We decided to head straight for the coast, which is Cape Canaveral. Although famous for it’s proximity to the Kennedy Space Centre, the Cape itself is just another slightly tired beach strip. Both Carnival and Disney do dock their monster cruise ships here, but that’s only due to the fact that this is Orlando’s closest harbour. Next, we drove to the Kennedy Space Centre. With the end of NASA shuttles, the future of this site is still a little shaky. Boeing has leased space for the manufacture of a commercial spacecraft, but the if & when questions regarding future space exploration continue to keep most former NASA employees, unemployed. The result is a fairly depressed region, with some really shabby looking housing areas.

We actually did not take the tour at KSC because we weren’t all that interested and the minimum cost of $45 per person was the final blow. We were able to see most of the early rockets without entry and the shuttle Inspiration was in front of the astronaut museum, so we were happy with our little detour.

We continued up the coast on Highway 1 first and then on A1A, which is a historic highway right on the coast. We went through Daytona Beach, which has long expanses of pristine, sandy beach. It’s easy to see why this place is popular.

Then we jumped back on the I-95 to make a little better time and stopped shortly after 3:00 p.m. at a Holiday Inn Express in Yulee Florida, which is just north of Jacksonville. The weather forecast for today called for a rainy day, but we didn’t actually hit the rain until Jacksonville. So after some slow time at the hotel, we set out to explore Fernandina on Amelia Island, which was about ten miles away. We drove to the historic part of this town and right to the waterfront where we found a restaurant recommended by our hotel, called Brett’s Waterway Café. We sat on the porch overlooking the marina and had a fabulous meal, with a starter of local shrimp, followed by a wedge salad, both of which we shared. Then Dawn had the catch of the day, which was snapper on a bed of barley risotto while I had the pub style fish (cod) and chips.

As the rain started to fall again we drove through the downtown admiring the various 18th century wood-clad homes, many of them with two story porches and ancient moss covered trees. I think we were starting to get a glimpse of what we’ll see over the next few days.