This travel update is for part one of our 98-day stay in Jacksonville, Florida, USA. It covers January 23 through 27.

January 23, 2002 – Monday: moving to Jacksonville

We were up fairly early in Mulberry this morning, but not as early as my brother who had first dog duty at 5:30 AM. Once we were up I gave the animals one last cuddle.

Then we loaded up the car. I was using a modified packing method today since I’ve got my piano keyboard with me now. The document boxes are not stacked on top of each other, but rather are all one level, and my keyboard and stand are laying across the tops of the document boxes.

Here’s Patti fitting the rest of her stuff in. Believe it or not she travels with more stuff than me.

The Prius isn’t a big car, so we usually spend some time getting everything into it.

We were packed up and left Mulberry around 11AM. We had talked about taking the more scenic route up through the middle of the state but we decided to take the quicker route this time, north-east on I-4 then north on I-95.

It was an easy drive, all interstates.

We got to our new home around 4PM. It’s called “Flamingo Lake RV Resort”. I seriously doubt that there will be any flamingos here.

“Treat the family to some fun in the sun at Flamingo Lake, one of the best RV communities near the Florida-Georgia border. Our fantastic location in Jacksonville keeps you close to a perfect mix of natural beauty and modern sophistication. Take in the beautiful northern Florida wilderness every day and enjoy a great selection of full hookup RV sites that include lakeview and lakefront site options. We also offer beautiful home rentals to fit your needs while providing all the comforts of home. Flamingo Lake offers residents a 17-acre swimming and fishing lake with sandy beaches, as well as great food and drinks at the Flamingo Lake Sunrise Café.”

We checked in at the office and then drove around to our 2-bed, 1-bath cabin. Here it is from the street.

The living room / kitchen is cozy, with a high ceiling.

And there’s a loft with an air mattress, “for the kids”.

The bathroom is small but functional.

The front bedroom has a low ceiling.

Our bedroom has a high ceiling.

It’s a comfortable place. We unloaded the car and did some unpacking. At sundown we had a nice sunset over the lake.

January 24, 2023 – Tuesday: Head Scan

We spent this morning doing some more unpacking then went to brunch at a nearby Waffle House. I like the Waffle House experience! Joan, our waitress, has worked there for 8 years and was playing tunes on the juke box and singing loudly, it was fun.

Then Patti drove us down to the Mayo Clinic so I could get my head CT scan. She drove because in 3 weeks she’ll have to be driving me down there and back for surgery and we wanted to do a dry run. Engineers like to do things like that.

Med-El, the company that makes my future cochlear implant, wants a head scan so they can measure the length of my cochlea and choose the correct length electrode array. FYI, the average cochlea is 31.5 mm long, but they can vary from 26 mm to 35 mm. I need the right-sized electrode array so it will go in the whole length of my cochlea without any electrodes left outside.

The procedure took 5 minutes and I got the results online a few hours later. Here’s my head. It looks pretty empty in there.

After Mayo we went by Costco for some large-box items like a 30-pack of toilet paper. Since we’ll be here for 3 months we’ll save some money by buying things in bulk.

When we got home this afternoon I jogged on the treadmill in the fitness center while Patti did a run outside.

After dark I got this picture from our front porch, the lake has lighted fountains in it at night.

January 25, 2023 – Wednesday: Settling In

Here’s a morning view of the lake from our front porch.

We had a list of errands to run today. We started off by making a punch list of issues in the cabin, like the bathroom sink drips, three of the drawers are broken, and the ceiling fan wobbles. I fixed one heater issue myself, the reset button needed to be pushed. I try to fix as many things as possible before we bring a list to the hosts. We took the list by the office and while there paid our bill for February. Next we went to the post office so Patti could mail something, then ate lunch at Arby’s. Then we went by Publix for some groceries, then to Home Depot to get an extra set of keys made for the cabin, then to Dollar Tree for some ice cube trays, then back home. We often find that if we’re staying someplace for a while we buy some low-cost items that we like to have, such as ice cube trays. We’re basically spending the first couple of days here settling in and Patti is “feathering her nest” to make it more comfortable.

This afternoon I did the elliptical machine in the fitness center while Patti had a run outside.

January 26, 2023 – Thursday: Mostly Settled In

We’re all unpacked and have found places for our stuff. I set my piano up in the front bedroom and we got a cardboard box at Costco to use for a computer standing desk on the guest bed. Patti got a full-length mirror at Walmart that she put in the guest room, you can see my reflection in it. Patti always likes to have a full-length mirror to see herself in. She may be a bit vain.

We’re using the loft as a storage area for empty suitcases, a large pack of toilet paper, and other things.

Patti made lunch today, tortellini with a tomato parmesan sauce. Here she is in the kitchen.

Our Wi-Fi connection here is quite slow so Patti called the telecommunications company, Sigma, this morning. They said they’re working on upgrading the equipment so next week it should be much faster. After lunch we walked over to the RV park office and Patti talked to one of the counter people and I tested the Wi-fi. It’s much faster there than at our place! 60.3 compared to 0.3 Mega-bits per second. I’ve been running network speed tests.

January 27, 2023 – Friday: A Day Trip to St. Marys

We were tired of hanging around home so we took a day trip today. We decided that I would be the one to decide where we go, so, I randomly picked the town of St. Marys which is up in Georgia. It was a quick trip north on I-95.

St. Marys actually has a fairly long European human history for the USA. American Indians, the Timucua tribe, were there by 200 BC. The French explorer Jean Ribault sailed on the St. Marys river in 1562 AD.  It was a large seaport for Britain and then the US for a long time, since it has a large, natural harbor.

“The city is home to the National Seashore’s visitor center and boat access; the annual St. Marys Rock Shrimp Festival; the St. Marys Submarine Museum, and Crooked River State Park. It is bordered by Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, home port for several Ohio-class submarines.”

“The St. Marys river area was first explored in the mid 16th century as part of the settlement of Spanish Florida, with nearby St. Augustine as the established capital. The original Spanish settlement was founded in 1566 making it the second-oldest continuously-inhabited European-established settlement in the contiguous U.S. Settlement for Georgians became legal after the Treaty of Paris in 1763.”

We parked at the St. Marys Welcome Center and went in and talked to the nice woman, Holly, there and got pamphlets for stuff to do, including a self-guided walking tour. We really like self-guided walking tours.

The welcome center had a photo op and the woman there, Holly, took our picture.

We walked for a little while then found a place for lunch that had mostly Greek food. As usual I got the moussaka and Patti got the pastitsio.

After lunch we continued our walk. There’s a nice river walk with docks and boats…

…and swings.

There were a number of sailboats anchored in the sound.

We walked through the cemetery. There are big old Live Oaks all over town that make really pretty pictures against the blue sky.

As we continued the self-guided walking tour we got to the old houses that are listed on the tour. I’ll put in pictures of a few of them.

Here’s the Ratcliff-Hopper-Todd-Woods house dated 1840.

Here’s the Tompkins-Long house from 1873.

General John Floyd house, 1830.

You get the idea, there were at least 20 of these old houses with signs out front.

We went by the modern Catholic church, called “Our Lady Star of the Sea”, so Patti could say a prayer. It has a pretty sanctuary and rose window.

We walked until about 5PM and enjoyed this little town. It’s advertised as being the “gateway to Cumberland Island”, which is a nearby national seashore, and you can catch the ferry to the island from St. Marys. But in our opinion it’s worth spending a day in St. Marys itself which has a fair amount of charm and is a tranquil town.

Future Plans:

• Until May 2 we’ll be in our “vacation cottage” reserved at Flamingo Lake RV Park in Jacksonville, Florida. That’s where I’ll be recuperating from my Cochlear Implant surgery that’s scheduled for February 13. We’ll need to go back to the audiologist at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville frequently in the first 3 months after surgery so she can make changes to my programming.
• May 2 – June 2: we’ve got a mobile home reserved at the Twin Shores Mobile Home Park on Longboat Key near Sarasota. We’ve stayed at that park before but in a different unit.
• After June 2, no plans yet, but we’re thinking about doing a road trip up the east coast to Maine and back. I don’t want to decide anything definite until I see how the cochlear implant is working out.