Traveling When We Can: Fernandina Beach

Thursday April 28, 2022

Slept well - beds in Comfort Inn’s are always great! That’s why we stay in them when we can. Breakfast was good – scrambled eggs, sausage and grits. We headed to the beach for some sun – nice sunny day but not too hot – bit windy but we loaded our new chairs on the buggy and away we went down to a great spot. Not too crowded at all but there are lots of people around. Only small children as school is not out yet. After about an hour we decided to call it a morning since this was our first beach sun of the season. Bad news – one of our brand new chairs had a bolt break after Ben had been sitting in it about 15 minutes…well so much for Chinese quality control. Trip back to Walmart later today for an exchange. Surf was pretty high but sitting in the sun felt great.

Ben had selected a restaurant for lunch and about noon we drove into Old town Fernandina Beach to Timioti’s Seafood. Ben had a crab sandwich and Jane a Mahi taco. Both were great. Ben said the crab cake was the best - outside of Maryland - he had ever had. It was an order at the window and sit at picnic tables sort of place and met our needs for lunch.

After lunch we headed to Walmart and they cheerfully took back the defective chair and we got another one. Sat in it for a while in the store before buying it! Let’s hope it is better quality. Finding quality American made products on vacation at Walmart is not really possible so we will just hope these last for several seasons at the beach.

Reading and a nap filled the few hours left of the afternoon. We headed back to Historic Downtown Fernandina Beach and Wicked Bao for dinner. This weekend is the Shrimp Festival – a huge community celebration that is 50 years old. They have not had a festival last 2 years so the community is really pulling out all the stops this year. There were signs all over about no parking in downtown area from Friday am until Sunday night. Nothing mentioned a parade on Thursday. We planned this dinner to avoid the weekend – well we almost avoided all the mess. Finally by detouring around back streets, we found Wicked Bao again and it was open. We enjoyed just like last year the Asian Street foods that this place does so well.

It seemed to us the prices had gone up and the servings were larger than last year. We had egg drop soup, smashed cucumber salad, chicken satay, Indonesian chili shrimp, and crispy pork chop rice. The soup, Chili Shrimp and Crispy Pork Chop Rice were the best. The cucumber salad was a disappointment but everything else was good. Other disappointment was they did not have the grilled corn we loved last year. After dinner the parade was still going full force and we again had to work our way through back streets to find the end of the mess. This experience was enough to convince us we were not up to coming to the festival tomorrow night. The crowds and traffic were too much for us – there is a golf cart shuttle from our hotel, but the walking would be significant. The to and from the shuttle was blocks and blocks from the center of the action. Our avoidance of crowds during COVID is also a reason to stay away. But we will have no problem finding a good dinner without battling this crowd to get some seafood cooked by the Rotary Club or some other group. There are also music and craft booths but not enough to entice us.