(Sea Island Cotton)
Remember how I mentioned that we were supposed to spend Labor Day weekend on the sailboat, sailing to Cumberland Island? Well, since that was not the safest option without a powerful engine (we have since obtained a 6 HP engine, hooray for Craigslist!) we decided to just get in the car and drive. I had read about the Kingsley Plantation a while ago when I was looking for interesting things to do in Jacksonville and since it was only about 30 minutes away, this seemed like a good start. (Tip for those who don't want to end up in somebody's crab shop in their front yard: don't type "Kingsley Plantation" into Google maps on your phone, instead, google it on the internet, and follow the link from there or else you'll end up buying crab from some backwoods shack.)
Kingsley Plantation is open every day from 9a-5p and there are limited tours of the plantation house, but even if you show up 25 minutes before they close, like we did, you'll still be able to see quite a bit before the park ranger makes you leave. Things like the crops that were grown by Zephaniah Kingsley and his slaves. If you go to this website you can read more about the history of the plantation and the Kingsley's. Interesting fact: Zephaniah's wife and children were his slaves until he "gave" them their freedom. It is sad to think of the lives that slaves had (especially the ones who worked turning indigo into blue dye, they had about a 5-7 year life expectancy) but it is important for us to learn from this period in history, so that we don't make similar mistakes in the future. Even if you have absolutely no interest in history, it is a pretty cool place to walk around and maybe have a picnic, the house sits right on the water and boaters pass by it constantly.
After you leave the Kingsley Plantation, it's about 20 minutes to the Amelia Island/Fernandina Beach area. It's a very beautiful and peaceful place to visit and reminded us both of New Smyrna Beach. There are shops and restaurants and, of course, a gorgeous beach with white sand. The drive from Jacksonville is one of the prettiest drives I have taken; you go from heavily wooded areas to rivers to ocean and I think the drive alone is worth the trip! If you bring a bottle of wine disguised in a water bottle (not that we'd ever suggest such a thing) you could enjoy a very romantic picnic or you could head to one of the local restaurants for a bite to eat and a drink. We went to the outside bar at Sliders, mostly for the view, and enjoyed a few drinks and an appetizer without breaking the bank.
I should probably mention that we came out to this area two days in a row. We wanted to stay overnight but we had a few obstacles: 1. Romeo, our dog and 2. There are no affordable places to stay if you wait until the last minute, during Labor Day weekend.
The second day we brought Romeo and a romantic picnic because dogs are allowed on the beach. It was so romantic in my mind, but Romeo wanted to make sure that no birds, dogs, humans or waves hurt us, so he spent the entire time lunging at any moving thing and barking at, well, just everything. This cut our romantic picnic short but we felt ripped off, so on our drive home, we followed the signs to Pumpkin Hill State Park. 
We enjoyed a nice hike on a sandy trail for about 10 minutes before Ryan shouts "HOLY CRAP". This instills fear into my heart and I freeze. This instills Ryan's photographer instinct and he closes in on the following creature:
That, my friends, is a dusky pygmy rattlesnake (it's pretty hard to see in the picture). Once Ryan told me that, I decided that this wildlife sighting concluded our nature hike. We spent the rest of our visit on the safety on our car, listening to the wind blow through the trees, a rooster in the distance and....absolutely nothing else. It was pretty cool.
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