fact, when you stand on the beach at the park you are looking right at Georgia. This park is one of our very favorites. It has everything you could ask for in a park-excellent biking, hiking, kayaking, a great fishing pier extending into the ocean, two campgrounds (one in the woods, one on the beach), and a FORT that you can tour. Plus, there's a cute bar right outside of the park, called Sandy Bottoms, with a very nice deck right on the ocean beach. Plus the town of Fernandina is only about 5 miles away, and is an excellent bike ride. I'm posting a picture of me standing next to the wooden pirate outside of The Palace Saloon, which prides itself on being the oldest continually-operating bar in the country. And - VERY important for me! - there are a TON of AVA walks, both in the immediate area and also quite a few in Jacksonville. When we were here two years ago, I did a number of the AVA walks, and (to my delgiht!) they've added a few more. IN FACT, I've already done two of the walks this week and hope to get in another one tomorrow.When we pulled into the park, we had a two-week reservation at the river campground (which is the one in the woods). It's very pretty back there, and the back of the campground ends at a nice waterfront facing the channel that runs along the back side of the
island. It's a nice place to kayak because you're not out in the open ocean-and you can paddle up the shoreline a short distance and go into Egan Creek, which has some marinas and fishing docks. The problem with this campground however, is that it was absolutely impossible for us to pick up a TV signal. And after poor Dave had to struggle all alone while I was visiting my friends, it seemed kind of unfair for us to go another two weeks without TV (especially with March Madness starting!). When we checked in to the park, they mentioned that the beach campground had been closed for rennovation and would be opening in a "few days". So I went up to the office on Friday and checked on it and actually found out the beach campground was opening that very day, and there were TWO sites left available for a 12 day stay. So we GRABBED it and 
moved within the hour. There is a BRAND new restroom and shower-WOW! And there's a GREAT TV signal! There is a boardwalk that goes from the campground down to the ocean beach and, a short walk south along the beach there is a gorgeou VERY long fishing pier (I'm attaching a couple pictures taken while we were walking on the pier yesterday). So, as you can tell, we are very happy here and are looking forward to the next week-and-a-half.Quick car update-my poor beat-up Camry is now in the garage, getting a much neeeded face-lift. In the meanwhile, we have this weird little red box for a rental car- a
Kia Soul, which is fine for now but NOT a car I would like long term. As of today, the car has been in for six days, so I'm hoping we get a call from the garage in the next couple of days, telling me that my baby is ready to come home.So, as I mentioned, I did two AVA walks this week. The first one was ok-it was a two-mile walk along the Egan Creek Greenway (which was pretty but was basically a straight line along the bank of the creek), then a walk through a residential area on the beach, then a two-mile walk back along AIA (basically walking on a sidewalk past a bunch of beach houses on a VERY busy street). The second one, however, was much more interesting. It was in the Fernandina "Old Town" area. The route snaked through an old residential area (in fact, there was a sign that said it was the very last town platted by the Spanish in the Western Hemisphere), and through a VERY old and interesting cemetery dating back to the late 1700's, then past the huge papermill that seems to be the absolute largest industry in the town, and finally through a portion of the pretty downtown area. Dave and I plan to go to the Jacksonville Beach tomorrow so I can do one of the AVA walks in that area while he rides his bike. I'll probably try to do one more AVA walk on Friday, but that'll probably be all I have time for....because:
Brenda and Arnie are coming down in THREE MORE DAYS. Actually, they'll be driving all day Friday, so we probably won't see them until Saturday, but I just can't wait! And then Sunday, of course, is my next 5K! I've been training like crazy and am feeling optimistic about seeing an improvement in my run time for this 5K compared to the one I did back in Melbourne. I've been running pretty much every alternate day and am just amazed at how much easier it gets as time goes by (note that I did not say "easy" I just said "easier!"). When I think about my first few runs (walk 90 seconds, run 60 second, etc) I'm pretty proud of myself! So it'll be GREAT fun to have Brenda and Arnie here to spend a few days with us and share the 5K experience with. HOW COOL! So-my next blog will include an update on how that went-stay tuned!
(PS-one final comment-there was this incredibly unique person staying in the campground when we arrived. His name was "Johnny B" and he had a medium size black dog named "Blackie". And he lives in this yellow box! Yep, I said a box! He is apparently homeless and he rides this yellow three-wheeled bicycle, and he pulls this yellow box behind his bicycle. And apparently he lives inside this box. I desperately wanted to get a picture of it to put in my blog, but the only times we went past his site, he was there so of course we wouldn't snap a picture with him standing there. I guess he has a TV and DVD player inside this box (along with some kind of a bed!) and he came over and asked if we had any movies he could borrow. I loaned him 3 movies and sure enough he brought them right back the next day-he said he watched Young Frankenstein three times! Dave and I went through our DVD's and gave him a couple that had a bunch of old westerns on them and told him he could keep them. He left today-he told Dave he had no idea where he was going next, but we keep talking about him. Unbelievable to think people actually LIVE like this, isn't it? We are SO lucky and fortunate to have everything that we do, aren't we?)
No comments:
Post a Comment