Saturday, January 11, 2003
We had planned to do a 1-day Volksmarch in nearby Jacksonville before we visited Monika’s niece, and we found out that it was way on the other side of the city! But with good directions from the point-of-contact we found our way out to the Cecil Commerce Center, which was a converted old Naval air base. The walk wound around the airbase and I was interested to see that the airport was still active. Boeing was reconditioning F-16s there and FedEx had a training facility complete with FedEx cargo plane. Other parts of the walk explored the back areas of the base including some small lakes and a golf course, of course, among which we found the checkpoint for this walk. Later in the walk we paid our respects at the “Walk of Honor” near the chapel where they had planted a living tree for each member of the airbase that had been lost in combat. A nice way to remember the fallen airmen, I think.

We drove back into Jacksonville to find Pam and Shannon’s house and have lunch with them there. It was a joy to see them and their two cute children, Nicki and Tori, who I enjoy playing with. Nikki showed me his new telescope he had received for Christmas and a super-duper tank that had rocket launchers, machine guns, and it even included small armored personnel carrier inside. Best of all, the tank had 4 red buttons that each gave out an appropriate sound effect like the rat-a-tat-tat of the machine gun. That would make playing war a lot easier than imitating all those sounds yourself! Tori also took me on a tour of her room and showed me her newest toy, a purple unicorn with a long flowing blue mane and tail. Think of “My Little Pony” but with a horn on the nose. Tori especially was proud of the small stars on the unicorn which, she informed me excitedly, glowed in the dark! I agreed that that must really be great and we went back to the front room so I could talk with the parents. All the while we were talking, however, the kids would bring me pretzels so I wouldn’t go hungry, which I thought was mighty considerate of children that young.

The scooter we had brought for Nicki from Virginia was put to immediate use—the family lives on a nice cul-de-sac area where they could both scooter together (Tori had a smaller 3-wheel version from her grandma). The house has a big backyard bordering a small pond—we saw an egret and a pair of hawks just during the afternoon. Shannon and Nikki had planned and built a really nice fort in the back which had monkey bars and multiple levels for playing. The kids also had made little play forts by lining areas in a fenced-off garden with pine cones. Each had their separate area and they obviously liked to play there.

After being given the grand tour we sat down to have a nice family lunch, which was thoughtfully prepared by Shannon so we could all have a chance to talk with Pam. After lunch we hopped into the family van and drove over to Fort Caroline, a reconstructed fort that dates back to an attempted Huguenot settlement in the 1600s. The kids had been here before and they enthusiastically led us “the long way” down a nature trail to get to the fort. Along the way Shannon discussed some of the trees and shrub exhibits with me and showed the kids how to eat the roots of the saw palmetto. Nikki taught us things he had learned about nature from his dad, so all in all we had a nice walk over to the fort.

The reconstructed fort itself was a rather small, triangular fort that somewhat reminded me of the type the English settlers had built at Jamestown in Virginia. This fort, however, flew the Fleur-de-lis French flag and also had some brightly-painted cannons for the kids to play on. We all enjoyed the view of the St. John River from the fort. We walked back past a floating dock and exhibits on the Tumucuan Indians. The visitor center had a small but very informative museum on the fort’s history and the interaction between the Europeans and the native-Americans during the history of the colony, which ultimately failed because of a Spanish attack and massacre—the Spanish clearly won that one.

We continued on to the Jacksonville Beach area and had nice beach walk. Obviously this was a favorite of the kids who alternated between looking for seashells and chasing the birds. They found some rather nice shells, but were not able to capture any birds, possibly because we had forgotten to bring any salt! The beach here has the very gradual shelving which I remembered from the Daytona area beaches, but Shannon said that they did in fact have to import sand to combat beach erosion, just like they have to do at Ocean City in our area. We continued up the beach while Shannon drove the car around to pick us up for the drive back to their house.

The night before we had been really cold, which didn’t bother me so much (I just burrowed deeper into the sleeping bag) but kept Monika from sleeping well. So while Shannon was grilling dinner, Pam took us to Wal Mart to buy an extension cord and a small electric space heater for the tent, and a warm-up suit for Monika to wear as pajamas. I though we were remarkably quick about the shopping trip, but Shannon was almost done grilling dinner when we arrived home. Dinner with big, freshly grilled, extra-lean de-boned pork chops and baked potatoes, etc. was quite delicious, and we enjoyed every bite. We talked mostly about our families and how everything was going for them. After dinner we toasted marshmallows in the “Mexican fireplace” installed out on the patio for dessert, and tried out Nikki’s new telescope, which worked so well it brought the moon almost into our laps! Nikki said he wants to be an inventor, and I wished him the best of luck in it because we need all the inventors we can get.

Reluctantly we headed back to our campsite, but when we got there I was relieved to find that the outlet was “hot” and we had electricity for the space heater. Having it on took didn’t heat the tent like a house exactly—the tent is too drafty because it is built for good ventilation—but it did take the edge off the cold and let me sleep in my T-shirt rather than layering on extra clothes. I was happy because I sleep better that way than when all bundled up—I guess I can toss and turn better. Monika’s warm-up suit also kept her warmer, so we both had a good night’s sleep.