Blogs from Jacksonville, Florida, United States, North America

For the past few years as my traveling experiences were compiling, I purposely avoided Florida. Why? I knew years ago that we were going to be here for a long period of time (1 month). So far I have only experienced the Jacksonville area near my camp and I am so impressed. This is how winters should be spent! I am camped out at Pelican Roost Campground on the Jacksonville Navy Base. My tent door is facing the ocean, I am surrounded by palm trees with brown pelicans flying overhead, a nice gentle breeze keeps me comfortable in these mid 80 temperatures. Awwwwww. There is so much to see locally, within walking distance. It wasn't until my second day I finally took a ferry from Mayport over the St. John's River. On my list to visit ... read more

We spent Thursday doing a grand tour. We left the cg around 11 and caught the local ferry that crosses the St John’s River almost at its mouth. The $7 for one way ticket saves about 30 miles. Beautiful views from the ferry and even more beautiful views from the tall overpasses crossing the marshes on the opposite shore. I have been this way before, but coming from north to south, many years ago when I had my small Class B. The inlet is wide and looks very shallow. It looks like it could be a dangerous surfers paradise, We saw fishermen and horse back riders along the beach. There are 2 large state parks here, Big and Little Talbot, and I know I have camped at least at one. We stopped along the way at ... read more

As we start our travels we decided to spend some time in the city we have lived in since 2002, Jacksonville, Florida. We have always loved to visit Hanna Park. Hanna Park is a city park located near the US Navy base in Mayport, FL. The park has so much to offer from beautiful ocean views with sandy beaches that you can ride your bicycle on at low tide, hiking, camping etc. It has a small lake and a campground that will handle visitors from tents to RVs. They even have some small cabins for rent. We decided to spend a few nights in the campground with our RV and get everything organized before we leave our home base. The pictures and videos are a small sample of this very large city park that is perfect ... read more

Tomorrow is the official launch day for our extended trip to Alaska. This blog is about the extended preparation that began with selecting two wardrobes to cover the heat of summer to the cool nights in Alaska. We elected to put our warm summer clothes in the coach and then used plastic boxes for our light winter gear. We will switch out as the need arises during the trip. The next effort involved setting up communications to insure connectivity while we telecommuted as part of our work. For our RV Entrepreneur friends we selected the WeBoost for our cell coverage enhancement along with the Truck mirror mounted antenna to give the communications and extra boost in power. Many thanks to our good friend Jeff Byrd with B&H Machining in Jacksonville FL for manufacturing a custom mount ... read more

There has been no frost on our pumpkin but it has not been the nice weather we had hoped for. A week of rain and a cold north wind in the 50's is not really what we had in mind when we put Florida on the agenda but it is what it is and we have made the most of it by relaxing, reading and basically sitting around. Jacksonville was kind of a stop over prior to Daytona anyway so we had no great expectations of travel and sightseeing. We did get to Clarks Fish Camp for dinner with Zac and his room mate which is always great food in an exotic setting. I am sure that one person didn't bag all the animals in this restaurant because there are dozens. It makes for an interesting ... read more