Ready to Roll

Location: Jacksonville, FL (High 69, Low 54)

Today has been another nice day. I did a few more miles to finish up my numbers for February. One of the things I was most looking forward to when we got on the road was being able to become more active. This has been a successful first full month! I have an app on my phone which keeps track of my statistics for each walk. In the month of February, I walked 36 hours, 54 minutes for a total of 125.77 miles. I have not lost any more weight; I am still at 30 pounds and holding…but my clothes still seem to be getting looser.

In preparation for leaving tomorrow, Harry sorted and organized the basement, and packed away all of our outside stuff.

I haven’t done my inside stuff yet, but we aren’t leaving super early in the morning as we have less than a three hour trip, so I will have lots of time to get everything packed away.

 

As I’ve been following blogs for a number of years now, I often read about great restaurants and everyone’s favorite places to eat. One place that has been mentioned a lot is Steak n Shake. Harry and I had never seen one, as they are not up north, and we decided that it is time to rectify that situation! Well – they definitely lived up to their reputation.

Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate for Harry, and Banana for me. We both give them a big thumbs up!

 

 

It took 9 miles of walking to work off those calories, but it was worth it!

 

 

Tomorrow we will be coming to you from Williston Crossings. We are looking forward to moving on!

Amazon Bound

Location: Jacksonville, FL (High 79, Low 62)

I actually had a plan for today’s blog, but as of 4 pm, it went right out the window. That’s about what time Harry’s phone rang.

Let me back up a bit…about a month ago, I sent an email to Amazon expressing an interest in working in their CamperForce program for the upcoming holiday season. Then a couple weeks ago, I received an email with the required paperwork, which we promptly filled out and returned. Since then we’ve been waiting for whatever the next step would be, until today.

When Harry’s phone rang, it was Kelly at Amazon calling to follow up on our application. He explained a bit about the program, answered a couple questions, and then we moved into the phone interview process. After we answered each of the questions in the affirmative, we were happy to get an offer of a position for this upcoming season. We have already emailed Kelly with a  copy of our scanned high school diplomas and the signed paperwork.

To have this position in place is a relief for us. Although we do have income from Harry’s retirement, unfortunately we are not debt free, so we intend to work at Amazon to supplement our income for at least a few years. We have followed blogs of people who have worked at Amazon and know it is going to be hard work, but we are sure we can do it.

In other news…tomorrow is our last day here in Jacksonville, so we will be doing some preliminary packing up and organizing in preparation for heading out Friday morning. Looking forward to seeing something new!

First Rainy Day

Location: Jacksonville, FL (High 73, Low 61)

We woke up this morning to pouring rain, and thunder and lightning. We have had storms now and then over the past month, but today has been the first real rainy day.

 

I wanted to do a little grocery shopping, but not enough to go out in the pouring rain. Luckily, around 9:30 this morning, there was a short period when the rain cleared, and we hurried up and went to the store while it was somewhat dry.

We no more got back to the rig than the rain started back up, and it has rained nonstop ever since. We are under severe storm alerts and a tornado watch until 8 pm, so we are keeping an eye on the radar.

 

I have spent the day doing some cooking…made some spaghetti sauce for dinner later this week….

and a little baking…my comment about my breakfast the other day of sausage gravy and biscuits started a whole discussion over on Rick’s blog today about the best way to eat biscuits. Hey, Rick, I thought of another one this morning!!

 

 

Strawberry shortcake!! YUM.

St. Augustine Encore

Location: Jacksonville, FL (High 82, Low 62)

Today for our last day seeing the sights with Linda, we decided to take another trip to St. Augustine.

Linda picked us up a little before 10 am, and we headed out of town. Being the weekend, it was a little busier than it was when we went, and we ended up parking in the parking garage this time.

 

 

 

We were able to spend some more time walking along browsing in the little shops and restaurants.

 

 

 

We found another Savannah Sweets store – more pecan pralines!

 

 

And we went to a place called the Panama Hat Shop, where Harry found a new hat.

 

 

For lunch, we went to a highly recommended place called Barnacle Bill’s. (We have a book called Roadfood: The Coast to Coast Guide for 800 of the best places to eat and this was one of the places listed for St. Augustine.)

 

 

Harry enjoyed his Shrimp Buster Platter…

 

 

 

…and my fish tacos were also really good, although I could not even come close to finishing my plate.

 

 

 

We finished our trip with a stop by the St. Augustine Lighthouse, although we passed on a trip to the top after we discovered that there was a $10 charge per person.

 

 

 

We had a great day, and now we are home relaxing. It’s still beautiful as I write this – 67 degrees, and we are enjoying the fact that we can sit here in our shorts with all our windows open on the 24th of February. Ahhh!

Last Weekend in Jacksonville

Location: Jacksonville, FL (High 81, Low 62)

Today has been another gorgeous day! And so was yesterday. Last night we actually left our windows open. Had nice fresh air coming in all night – I love it!

It has been so nice to be in Jacksonville for the month. Harry’s sister Linda lives here and we have been able to visit with her every weekend.

 

This morning we started out with breakfast at a local place. Sausage gravy and biscuits – yum. Definitely something I would have been better off not discovering that I loved.

 

On our way back to Linda’s house, we stopped in a new development where both of Harry’s nephews have recently built homes.

This whole neighborhood is brand new.

 

 

These lots are all sold, and there are going to be three more homes built in this area.

 

 

 

 

The side view from the backyard reminded me of watching episodes of House Hunters on HGTV when people complain about close neighbors.

 

 

But the view to the back was much nicer.

 

 

 

After we got back to the campground, we had another nice afternoon with more of what has become the usual…walk a few miles, sit outside, read our kindles, cooked dinner on the grill. A very nice day.

 

Tomorrow, we will be doing some more sightseeing with Linda. Enjoying our last weekend here in Jacksonville.

Another Lovely Day

Location: Jacksonville, FL (High 68, Low 48)

Yesterday’s weather was picture perfect. By early morning, we had all of our windows open and our overhead fan circulating the air. We also put our awning out for the first time since we’ve been here.

 

 

Many of our days here have just been relaxed, laid-back days and yesterday was one of the best. I went for my morning walk – 3 miles, and then sat outside with a cup of iced tea and my kindle.

 

While I was walking, Harry worked with one of his sensors for the Pressure Pro System. It’s not giving a reading and as luck would have it, it was one of the back sensors, so he had to take the tire off to get to it. He deleted it from the system and moved it to the front, but it still wasn’t working, so he will have to contact the company to send it back for replacement.

 

 

One week from today, we will be packing up to head to Williston FL. We have really enjoyed our time here, but we are getting ready to head on down the road.

A Day Trip to St. Augustine

Location: Jacksonville, FL (High 65, Low 48)

With our time here ticking down quickly, we decided it was time to take a ride to St. Augustine.

It was a beautiful day to take a walk around the city. We followed the directions to the parking area outside the Fort – luckily it was not that busy so we easily found a spot.

 

 

Harry was taking a picture from the fort, and got a pretty good shot of the parking area. We were happy to be able to park so close.

 

I could really tell the difference in construction between this Fort and the one we visited last week. There were a lot of earthen areas in last week’s – this one had stone everywhere. The one last week had pretty precarious looking steps to go up to the top level – I liked the Spanish style much better.

 

I loved the smell of the ocean…

 

 

 

 

…and the views were wonderful.

 

 

 

 

After we explored the Fort, we took a walk around the historic district.

 

 

The buildings were beautiful. The Spanish style of architecture was evident everywhere we looked.

 

 

 

We found a nice place called Scarlett O’Hara’s to have lunch, with a very nice outside area….

 

 

 

 

 

…and then followed it up with some yummy soft serve yogurt.

 

We made a quick stop at the outlets to pick up a few items we needed, and then headed for home. It was a great and fun day.

One week left to our stay in Jacksonville.

Fort Clinch State Park

Location: Jacksonville, FL (High 58, Low 41)

Brrr! What happened to our nice warm Florida weather? I think Harry and I have gotten spoiled since we left NY because this weekend has felt very chilly! But it won’t be for long because we have nice 70 degree temps coming back again this week.

Yesterday morning it was nice and sunny, despite the chill in the air. So Harry and I decided to take a trip over to Fort Clinch State Park, which is located on Amelia Island, and is about a 30 minute trip from where we are staying.

My camera battery died after my first picture, so all of today’s blog pictures were taken by Harry.

There is a lot to see at Fort Clinch State Park – a beach, a museum, hiking trails, and of course, the Fort.

 

When we first arrived, we headed over to check out the beach. The path heading around the corner of the Fort goes down to the beach.

 

 

Unfortunately, we hadn’t given any thought to what the wind coming off the ocean was going to feel like on this already cool day. Let’s just say we didn’t spend too much time on the beach.

 

 

I was glad I had my sweatshirt – both because of the cold wind and because my hair was being whipped around in every direction!

 

 

One of my favorite parts was seeing the pelicans flying along the water. There were so many pelicans – they’re huge!

 

 

After our quick trip to the beach, we came back and checked out the Fort itself.

 

 

 

 

I would NOT want to sleep on these beds.

 

 

It was really neat to see all the living quarters and imagine how the soldiers lived back in the 1800s.

 

 

We did not try to do the hiking areas because it was starting to cloud up, so we headed back to the campground, and just in time, because it started pouring only a short time later!

I would like to go back on another warmer day and check out the rest of the park. Believe it or not, we have less than two weeks left here. Hopefully the nicer weather will be sticking around!

An Unexpected Move

Location: Jacksonville, FL (High 75, Low 63)

The one thing that we haven’t liked about our stay here in this campground was thinking about the day we have to pull out. After we got into our site, we realized that pulling out would be a challenge as we had to make a pretty sharp left turn and there was a light pole right on the corner.

We’ve gone back and forth discussing our plan of attack for departure day, but neither of us liked either of our options.

 

This morning, we were watching a toy hauler that was in the site across the street. It also had a light pole on the left corner and we watched to see what they did. What they did was back straight up into the site next to us, and then came out and headed down our street.

That got me thinking…what if we did the same thing? This picture is taken from our “old” site – you can see the empty one across and to the right.

To add to the challenge, the weather was looking a little on the stormy side. The possibility of solving our light pole issue was worth it though. We headed over to the office, explained the issue, and asked them whether we could move over one site.

They gave us the go ahead so we came back to the fiver and got busy packing up. It probably took about an hour, or maybe a little more.

 

Here we are in our new site, at the right of the picture. We pulled forward into that empty site, into the spot across the way, lined up and backed into our new spot.

 

 

We are very happy to be settled again. And NO light pole to our left, so now departure day will be much less stressful.

 

 

 

And we got everything outside set up just in time!