In 2016, while staying in St. Augustine, Kathy and I drove an hour north, past Jacksonville, to Amelia Island for the day. I enjoyed our brief visit, vowing to return. When I was invited to meet Rick there in March 2020, I quickly said yes. I already planned to be en route from New Orleans to Savannah in that timeframe, so it worked out perfectly. Susin and Clinton, my current traveling companions through May, are always up for an adventure, so they said yes too.

Amelia Island, Florida is 13.5 miles long and two miles wide at its widest point. Of the 21,000 people who live there, a little over half live in Fernandina Beach, the island’s only incorporated city, which has over 100 shops and restaurants.

It is a charming, quaint, and picturesque area (as long as you can overlook, and not smell, the local pulp mill!).

(Photo: Clinton Carter)

Rick and friends from Wisconsin were headed to Amelia Island for the Concours d’Elegance, a world-renowned collectible automobile show and auction, celebrating its 25th year in 2020. Most events take place at the Golf Club of Amelia Island and the Ritz Carlton.

On our first night we met Rick, Caleb, Nina, Jeff, and Becca in Fernandina Beach for dinner.

We liked Espana Restaurant in Fernandina Beach so much, we went back for more tapas and sangria (and paella!) when Christian got to town.

They rented a house less than five minutes from us, and we enjoyed hanging out at their place on a couple of evenings.

(Thanks for the photos, Becca!)

On Friday we headed downtown for the Eight Flags Road Tour and watched over 30 classic cars park on Centre Street.

On Saturday we attended Cars and Coffee at the Concours, on the fairway, free to the public. (We skipped the final day, when the rarest vehicles were on display and admission was $150 per person at the gate. Yeowch!)

On Saturday we also attended the Sotheby’s auction at the Ritz.

Estimated values of the vehicles ranged from $50,000 to literally millions. We had no skin in the game, but we were on pins and needles for Jeff, who auctioned two. (Both sold.)

The stock market took a dive the day before the auction, and it was obvious bidders were being cautious; the catalogue listed estimated low to high values for each vehicle, and most auctions were closing at or below the low number. Nevertheless, they were selling, which was exciting to me at first, but that slowly morphed into fatigue and incredulity at the copious amounts of money being spent. Most people in this country will never be able to afford a $750,000 home, but that kind of dough was being dropped on a car.

Perhaps my haves-and-have-nots mindset crept in because of our accommodations for five nights, at the Sandpiper Mobile Home Court.

When Rick phoned to invite me to Amelia Island, I immediately tried to book reservations at Fort Clinch State Park. Not surprisingly, there were no vacancies, in Florida during High Season. Finding no private campgrounds nearby, I searched for mobile home parks; in some areas I call RV deserts, I’ve had luck with them if they have a vacant space or two.

I was thrilled when Sandpiper said they had room for two rigs. Taking down my info, she asked if I was on disability, or if I was a sex offender.

I assumed Sandpiper just happened to have a couple of vacancies, but when I pulled in I realized the entire park is closing.

Three of its once 20-plus sites remain occupied. Unwanted park models are scattered about, unoccupied, windows broken, caution tape strung across crumbling wood ramps and decks.

White ribbons and orange ribbons encircle trunks of old trees; there are more white than orange, including one wrapped around a massive old Live Oak, and I hoped white indicated it will avoid the ax.

Olivia is helping out around the grounds and gave me some history. The park opened in the 1940s, and the little bungalow nearest the road was built then. At first the property was slated for a new Publix supermarket, but that fell through. Then it was supposed to be something else, and now they’re saying townhomes. Surveyors show up on a regular basis. The owner, age 74, is busy packing trailers that her brother hauls to South Carolina, where she will relocate.

I see this phenomenon everywhere I travel. Mobile home parks are often the only non-subsidized low income homes in a city, and they are being pushed out by gentrification. If you walk either direction on the bike path from the Sandpiper, there are high-end restaurants and townhomes galore. The cigar shop directly across the road did a booming business all weekend as Concours participants pulled up in classic convertibles. (A lucky few would depart in one of the ten or so private jets we saw at the little municipal airport on Sunday, their vehicles shipped overland.)

Perhaps my attitude was also clouded by the events of my arrival on the island. I got there about a half hour before Susin and Clinton, picked a site (there were plenty to choose from), and began backing in, without getting out to walk and inspect the site first. I know better. My rear tires sunk in the soft-packed sand, and Nellie was stuck.

By the time Susan and Clinton arrived, I was sweaty and sandy and red-faced and worried. Olivia (bless her) and I shoveled sand and placed wood under the tires for traction, but my first attempt to extricate myself was unsuccessful.

Susan took this photo from inside her rig. She told me later she didn’t know how I would react if she snapped pics while I was still stuck in the sand! Yup, I must have looked homicidal at that point.

Thank goodness for Clinton and Susin! A call to AAA was avoided when they dug deeper and longer, got the boards nice and flat, then pushed Nellie while I cautiously pressed the accelerator. Here’s a good photo of the aftermath.

I write this from Savannah, Georgia, where I’ve had a day to reflect on the vast dichotomy of our experiences on Amelia Island. Of course I don’t begrudge the Concours participants buying and selling classic vehicles to their hearts’ content. I am thrilled those histories are being lovingly preserved, and they can spend their own money any damned way they see fit. I am also grateful for the invitation and for getting to see the Sotheby‘s auction thanks to Rick and Jeff; I know how hard they both work, not only in their careers, but on their classic vehicles as well.

I guess I just got a bit melancholy, staying in that little mobile home park that was “once just a dream in somebody’s head” as Peter Gabriel put it. Then it was a reality, and home to many non-two-percenters over the decades. Now it’s over, and people are displaced, and that’s what they call progress.