Oops - Time to Catch Up!

Gee, I guess with being here for two whole weeks I've gotten a little lazy about keeping my blog up to date. And now, here we are, with only one full day left before we move again. It has been really nice to be here for two weeks - I'm definitely planning slightly longer stays for next year's trip. It's been nice to feel that we have the time to do whatever we want, with no rush or feeling like we "have" to get everything squeezed in. And now, having said that, I can't think of a lot of "big" things that we've done over the past 5 or 6 days. I'm still getting in my AVA walks - I did the one here at Fort Clinch, which was very nice, plus I did the one in the town of Fernandina Beach. It's a nice walk, but basically I had already covered all this ground between this trip and when we were here two years ago. But it would be a great walk for someone new to the area. And I also did the St. Mary's (Georgia) walk today. This is the first one that's actually been kind of a bore - there just isn't anything that spectacular - it's a nice old town, but there isn't really a big historic district with "grand" old houses or anything. On the other hand, this walk was my number TEN, so I get to send in my record book for my first "award" recognition - I'm SO very excited. Actually, it's been a lot of fun doing these walks. I think the next "level" is walks number 11 through 30, and then 31 through 50. I had a couple questions about how to submit my book and get a new one, so I talked to a nice person in Texas today. She said they have LOTS of snowbirds who do the AVA walks; in fact, she said they have a lot of people who actually plan their winter trips around the walks! It would be easy to do, with over 1800 year-round events!
On Friday, Dave and I drove into downtown Jacksonville because there are three separate walks that start at the Omni Hotel downtown, so I wanted to kind of check out the area. It is kind of a neat downtown - as with much cities on a major river, there is a well-developed riverwalk area with lots of bars and restaurants, and some pretty neat looking bridges going over the river. I planned to come back on Sunday and do one of the three walks, but at the last minute decided I'd feel safer walking downtown during the week, when all the buildings are full - when we left Friday evening, it looked like right after 5:00 it gets a little deserted downtown, especially if you go more than a couple blocks from the heart of the city. It's too bad you have to consider things like this, but I want to be sure that I only do walks that I feel safe and comfortable with - so I guess I'll safe these until our next trip through the area.
We DID get to St. Augustine, and, yes, it is really nice! We walked around in the old section for quite a while - Dave actually did fairly well with his bum knee! - and we went through the old "Castile" fort - VERY cool - probably the biggest (and oldest) of the various forts we've visited. We also checked out Anastasia State Park, which everyone kind of raves about, but to tell the truth we weren't overly impressed with the park - the camping lots are really small, and other than its proximity to St Augustine (which is great - it's less than two miles) there isn't a lot else to rave about. I imagine the beach is quite nice - we didn't actually go down to it - but there are a LOT of campgrounds along the Atlantic coast. So we probably won't make a point to try to get into this park next year.
So - let's see - what else have we done? We've gotten in some nice bike rides, some great hiking, and a little bit of kayaking (it's been pretty windy most of the time, and even on the harbor that means whitecaps). There's a cute little bar right outside the park called Sandy Bottoms and we've stopped in there a few times. We've had two nice bonfires. We walked out on the great fishing pier - although we actually haven't seen anyone fishing - we estimated it to be the length of about four football fields - really long! We've done lots of little "errand" type things - watched quite a few movies, caught up with the laundry, etc., etc., And, of course, now that I've started another Davenport class I've spent a fair amount of time doing homework online - but it's been fairly painless so far and I'm already on week #3 (out of 7) so I think I'll make it!
All in all, I guess I haven't done a lot of updating because we've just been doing a lot of "hanging out" - but it's been great. We're hoping to get in one last kayak ride tomorrow if the wind dies down - it's supposed to - and if not, I'll probably find another AVA walk (...have I mentioned I love these?). And then - time to pack up and move up into Georgia. The next park is actually a private campground (as opposed to a state park) - it's on Jekyll Island, which is a really cool place (we were there two years ago for just a day visit and really liked it) so we're kind of looking forward to spending a week on the island. I'll have lots of pictures from there. And, of course, Thursday starts off MARCH MADNESS - and I still have to fill in my brackets, so gotta go! Next update we'll be done with Florida and into Georgia (and only three weeks left in our trip!)...