Georgia - Florida Trip Part 5

After we left Pensacola we got back on the Interstate for our trip to St. Simons Island. We made one stop on the way to have my first 'peach fritter', I doubt that it will be my last. It was good but a little disappointing because I was hoping for more peach. Oh well, another time, another place, I'm sure that won't be my last time in Georgia.

As I said in my previous post, one reason that we went to St. Simons was for kind of a "walk down memory lane" for JR. He lived on the island in 1968 when the only real eating establishment he remembers is the Dairy Queen that is still there. There is a very large resort there, the King and Prince, that was boarded up when he was there and now it is a very exclusive, very crowded destination resort. While we walked around, and walk we did, looking at some of his old stomping grounds we saw the apartment that he shared with three other sailors. He shared a lot of memories from the time spent there; the one common memory we both shared during those early Navy years was homesickness.

Here are some pictures from our walking tour.

These were taken from the end of the pier. The shrimp boat was just in the process of dropping it's nets and heading out to fish.

The King and Prince

We stayed at a beautiful Methodist Retreat on the Island, "Epworth by the Sea", what a beautiful, peaceful, spiritual place. Here are just a few of the pictures from there.

The following morning after breakfast we decided to visit one final place from our, National Parks Passport, Fort Frederica National Monument. It felt surreal knowing that I was standing on some of the same ground where people I used to teach about in the classroom stood so many years ago. The ranger on duty gave us an interesting overview of what we would see and then we took a self-guided tour before leaving the island.

Then it was back to Athens for one more night of walking around town and meeting friends of JR. We had one final interesting experience involving an old friend but that will be for another post. It was a great trip!

Georgia - Florida Trip Part 4

The interesting thing about blogging is that life continues to go on whether you are caught up or not and so you find yourself getting further behind every time you put off doing an entry. Fortunately it is just over a week since I returned from the trip and I have good pictures to help me with the details.

My daughter who was my inspiration to start and continue blogging has been blogging for several years and has found herself way behind because their life has been so crazy busy, has recently started catching up again and you can almost sense the relief in something as simple as a text that says, "just did a new post". Two things that make it possible for her to do such a nice job catching up are organization and good pictures that serve as reminders of the great memories that she wants to share. As I said at the start of this blog, that is my whole purpose for blogging, to share memories from the past as well as share things as they happen. With that said, here is the final entry for my trip with Clarence (JR) from Georgia to Florida and back.

After a last night trek on the beach we set out the next morning for Georgia. First I had to make my traditional stop at Dunkin' Donuts for coffee and two double chocolates for the road. The plan was to get off the interstate at New Smyrna and follow A1A all the way to Pensacola. I wanted to check out Daytona Beach because I'm planning a future trip there to watch my grand daughters compete. We weren't in a rush because instead of going straight to Athens, JR had suggested we stop in St. Simons Island for the night. He had lived there in '68 when he was stationed nearby.

At New Smyrna we missed a turn for A1A and found ourselves at the entrance kiosk for Canaveral National Seashore. Since I am the happy holder of a "America the Beautiful" senior pass that provided free entrance we decided to stop and look around. I'm glad that we did because not only was it beautiful but a new adventure was born.

We both decided to buy the Passport and our day changed again because we immediately decided to see what official cancellation stamps we might get on the way to Athens. Surprisingly we four different locations and documented them in our Passport. The first of course was Canaveral National Seashore where the spiders were big!

The pictures were taken at Turtle Mound. Saw a dolphin but still no manatee! From the park we found our way back to A1A and headed to Daytona Beach where we made a quick stop just to look around and see where I might try to stay in January. It was a typical touristy beach town. That's not a negative just an observation.

Continuing along A1A we stopped at two additional places in that were highlighted in our National Parks Passport. Fort Manzanares National Monument where we couldn't take the ferry to the fort because there was a long time before the next one went but we did get to walk around the grounds including a short nature trail and JR watched a video about the history of the fort which in English is "Fort Massacre".

Our final stop before heading to St. Simons Island was in Pensacola, Florida at the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument where we got to tour the fort. It reminded me of a fort that my family visited many years ago in main, Fort Knox, that might be another story for another time.

I thought that this would be the final post about this trip but I decided that St. Simons Island deserves a post of it's own so there will be a part 5 before I move on to something else.

Georgia - Florida Trip part 3

On Sunday we got together with my son Jeff and his family. I got to see all but one of my Florida grandchildren and great grandchild at a cookout and then on Monday I got to see my other grandchild and took her, Jeff and JR to eat. It was good seeing everyone and I continue to marvel at how much everyone is growing. Here are a few pictures from the get together.

Me with my son Jeff and my grandson Preston and his family.

Three of my granddaughters, Allison, Alyssa, Mallory and my great granddaughter Kaelyn.

The star of the show - Jeff made my father in law's Border Beans!

Jeff with my granddaughter Ashley.

On Monday JR and I went on a kayaking tour on the Banana River. We had a very knowledgeable guide who gave a very interesting overview of the nature and history of the area. While we didn't see any manatee we did see a lot of interesting birds as well as an otter and a small pod of dolphin. I couldn't get any pictures of the dolphin no matter how much I tried, too difficult to time their movement with my camera. 

It was fun and a good way to see a different side of the Gulf Coast area. Plus, I got to bag another river. 

Here are some pictures from the time we spent on the river.

I'll probably wrap up this trip in one more post. We decided to spend an extra day before we went back to Athens and my next post will cover that day. Good trip so far made special by seeing family and sharing the trip with a good friend.

Georgia-Florida Trip - Part 2

Saturday morning we got another early start and didn't even have breakfast before we decided to walk south on the beach, everything had been north and back so far. So I went to get us some coffee and the good news is that it came in large cups.

It was another beautiful morning but it was obvious that it was going to warm up fast and the ever present Florida humidity was high. As much as you sweat if you go outside in the southeastern states I don't know how people can ever keep up with their laundry.

Going south proved to be a good thing we got to see a young sea turtle making its way to the water, something very unusual in the daytime because they don't survive the sun. The good news is that he made it into the water eventually.

 Fortunately the little guy made it before these guys decided they wanted breakfast.

We also saw this guy digging a hole to get out of the sun. I always enjoy seeing different things when walking, hiking or running.

We spent the rest of the day at various locales on Cocoa Beach just enjoying catching up and relaxing.

We spent time at the Cocoa Beach Pier and then went to the Sand Bar where I had my first alligator tail. I don't think that I would ever have had to nerve to try it if I hadn't watch Troy Landry on Swamp People cook it. What can I say except that it, "tastes like chicken".

That night we went to an Irish Pub with my son and daughter in law. Jeff helped build the bar. The interesting thing is that the owner is from Ireland where he also owned a bar and a lot of this bar, "Hogan's Traditional Irish Pub" was built with materials brought from the Irish bar and other Irish locales. We had a good time and left with plans for a cookout the next day. 

More to come: