Jacksonville in a Pandemic

Several people straight up told me that they thought I was crazy to go to Jacksonville, Florida during this COVID-19 pandemic. The way I looked at it though was that Coronavirus is everywhere. The number of cases in the St. Louis metropolitan area is pretty explosive itself, so why shouldn’t I take myself a lil’ impromptu vacation to go and enjoy some new scenery and old friendship? I’m beyond thankful I ignored those detracting remarks and did what I wanted because I truly had THE BEST time!

Prior to my trip down to Jacksonville, I’d been to Florida four times, but strictly only ever to the Orlando International Airport and Walt Disney World, never anywhere else. I was beyond excited to finally break this Floridian stalemate!

Jacksonville was an AMAZING little town despite not actually being so little at all. In 1968, Duval County consolidated with the city of Jacksonville and created a mega-city of sorts, leaving only four other towns in the entire county. As a result of this consolidation, Jacksonville remains Florida’s most populated city with nearly a million residents.

Following my twelve hour drive from Cutesville to Jacksonville, which I documented in the blog, Life is a Highway, I spent a little while talking to my phenomenal friend, Florida Nancy, before showering and just crashing to sleep. Up until that very moment, I honestly don’t recall ever having been so tired in all my life! It felt great to finally lie down! For whatever reason, despite exerting super low levels of energy, driving can really take a lot out of you!

The first true day of my vacation was spent at Jacksonville Beach (one of the four other cities in Duval County) where Florida Nancy and I had THE BEST time! This may surprise a few of you who know how I typically feel about the beach. I’ll be honest, I haven’t always been the biggest fan, but I think a large part of that stems from the fact that the Pacific Ocean is just so damn cold! In California it didn’t matter if it was 110º out, you could guarantee that water was still going to be freezing! Whereas my California Gurl, Katy Perry, would argue that nothing comes close to the Golden Coast, I’m going to have to strongly disagree with her on this one. I’ll definitely choose those warm Atlantic waters first anyday!

In addition to my distaste for the frigid waters of the Pacific, I’ve also never enjoyed the aftermath of the sand. Like, I have ALWAYS loved the feel of the sand between your toes when you’re completely dry and haven’t got in the water yet, but let me tell you what, once I’ve been in and that sand starts sticking to me – this is not longer a McDonald’s because I’m not lovin’ it! It’s really quite the unpleasantry for me, but for whatever reason, this time around it thankfully didn’t really phase me.

It just felt so wonderful being in that warm water and bouncing along with the waves. Plus, the beach was fortunately not crowded at all. We were able to find a parking spot in a somewhat secluded neighborhood and use the beach there, it was perfect! Naturally, I was paranoid about the looming possibility of a shark attack. Every single time – of which there were many – a helicopter flew overhead, I knew in my mind that it was going to stop directly over me and start shouting down that a shark had been spotted and to evacuate the waters immediately. Thankfully, this fear never materialized, but that didn’t stop Florida Nancy from thinking me insane for this very rational nightmare of mine. I mean, one can never be too cautious when it comes to those Demons of the Sea!

The following day we ventured downtown Jacksonville because even though she’s lived there for a month now, Florida Nancy, hadn’t yet been and naturally being my first time in town, I hadn’t either. I LOVE being downtown in big cities, so personally I couldn’t wait! Well, while we did have an awesome time, downtown Jacksonville was nothing like either of us had originally anticipated.

We parked directly across the street from the Museum Of Science & History (MOSH – which we went to later) and walked across this awesome drawbridge to the other, larger half of downtown. Well, as the two of us were making our way across, we were stopped in our tracks by a wonderful bridge personnel who informed us that we would have to patiently wait while they raised the bridge for a boat to pass under.

This highly informative bridge worker shared with us a great many details about how the bridge crew get notified by ships and boats whenever one needs to pass under. She then elaborated on the process in which they do so. It was incredibly interesting and something neither of us had expected to encounter that day, but I was thrilled we did. When the bridge lady pointed out the boat that was needing to pass under though I about fell right off that steel structure and into the harbor!

It was this dinky ass little sailboat that had TWO people aboard! I was lowkey appalled that these two individuals held up ALL this vehicular traffic so they could cross under as opposed to merely just sailing around. I legit couldn’t believe it. Dozens upon dozens of cars had lined up on both sides of the bridge waiting to pass to their appropriate side all so this tall masted sailboat with two crew aboard could sail through. I just automatically assumed it would be some grand vessel sailing through, not this toy sailboat, but whatever works for them down in Jacksonville I guess.

During our conversation with the bridge worker we asked her recommendations for a place to eat lunch and rather than rattling off a list, she stalled pretty hard, which honestly gave me a surprise. We could see dozens of high-rise towers before us, surely there’d be plenty of places to eat, right?

It wasn’t so much that there wasn’t anywhere to eat, there were places, but they all closed at 2:00 and unfortunately for Florida Nancy and I, it was now 2:30. We walked in over a half dozen little restaurants and were told each time they were now closed. After several blocks of disappointment neither of us could handle it anymore and we were both approaching extreme hanger. We gave up and ate lunch at Jimmy John’s.

Let me sidebar for a moment here, I do NOT like going to Jimmy John’s whatsoever because their founder and owner is a notorious big game hunter and I find it impossible to support that tyranny. I hate when people hunt those majestic animals for nothing other than “sport.” A sport it is NOT. That deplorable behavior very much upsets me, but desperate times called for desperate measures and Jimmy John won out that afternoon.

Anyway, as we sat there eating our Jimmy John’s, we could see the sky starting to turn outside and knew a brutal storm was coming. We finished quickly and started walking back through the deserted streets of downtown Jacksonville towards the bridge we walked over before. Honestly, downtown Jacksonville was crazy, I’m not sure if there are any residential towers or even hotels down there. It was literally nothing but banks and courthouses, so bizarre. As we power walked back across the bridge we could feel the wind picking up with fantastical speed, but thankfully for us, the rain hadn’t yet started to fall. Gone were the cheerful blue skies that greeted us earlier and instead storm clouds of a violent gray loomed overhead. Those last few minutes before reaching Florida Nancy’s car had us hustling through a light drizzle, but it was nothing compared to the downpour we witnessed from the safety of her vehicle. We only had to sit there long enough for our 4:00 reservation at MOSH to arrive so we could head off on our next adventure.

We braved the torrential rains and bolted across the street to the museum and once inside we truly had THE BEST time! It was so incredibly informative! Sadly, so many of their exhibits were interactive and as a result roughly half were inoperable due to COVID-19 restrictions. They did manage to update a handful of them so that when visitors would wave their hands over certain things rather than touch them the information would be displayed as it should be. It was really neat and I hadn’t seen anything like that yet. The ground level was primarily about energy and power along with some information about local waterways and tributaries and the marine life within them. We then went upstairs where they had this fascinating walk through that was infinitely larger than anticipated all about the history of Jacksonville. That’s where I learned the population facts I presented to you all in the beginning of this post. The other half of the second level as well as all the third was dedicated to this traveling dinosaur exhibit. I very much loved it as I’ve ALWAYS been a big fan of dinosaurs!

Unbeknownst to me, Florida Nancy is an avid fan of the Broadway musical, Jersey Boys, and I’d never had the pleasure of seeing it despite very much loving the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Well, that particular evening we watched the 2014 Clint Eastwood directed biopic and I loved every minute of it! I never knew there was so much drama and inner-turmoil in their group! My goodness! It obviously made for a good story given how popular the stage play remains! I’ve been on a Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons kick ever since! “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” is my favorite, but “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “Walk Like A Man” definitely give it a run for its money!

The following day we made the roughly forty minute drive to St. Augustine and let me tell you what, this town was THE BEST! I’m embarrassed to admit that until just a couple days before my trip, I somehow had never even heard of it! It’s the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in the United States! The Spanish settled it in 1565! How in the world did I not learn of it till August 2020!?! Shameful. There’s no excuse on my behalf for this educational atrocity. Right away we had lunch at this delicious seafood restaurant and the building was ancient! We got seated on the second story patio and were able to look out and see the harbor on one side and the unbelievably gorgeous town from the other two. I was just blown away by how beautiful it all was!

We followed lunch with a trip to the St. Augustine Lighthouse and let me tell you what, it wasn’t that hot while we were sitting outside eating, but once we got to the lighthouse the temperature must’ve risen by like 25º because I started sweating like crazy! It was not desirable, but I wasn’t about to let a little sweat prevent me from having a great time. Florida Nancy and I walked up the nine or ten flights of stairs (I lost count!) to the very top of the lighthouse and if you don’t know this about me let me tell you now, I HATE HEIGHTS! It wasn’t so awful going up the stairs because everyone was extremely aware and waited for anyone on the steps to either finish walking up or down before they would start their ascent or descent from each landing, but once we got out in the open at the top of that lighthouse I was terrified. There is a picture with me up against the railing, but the only way I was able to take it was by backing up towards the railing. I can never just walk up to these things and turn, I have to trick my mind by backing in. Lord, help me we were so high up there. The view totally made dealing with my fears worth it though given just how much we could see. It really took my breath away!

We went back towards the downtown area and stopped in this quaint little ice cream shop. It was much needed after the sweat fest that was the lighthouse. We then perused the streets and took a handful of pictures outside some truly historical buildings. St. Augustine has fast risen up my list of places I want to visit (in this case in greater detail) in the United States. I would LOVE to go for a long weekend and stay in one of the hotels right there in the historic downtown and just wander in the shops and eat at all the amazing sounding restaurants. Being such an old town there was plenty of advertisements for various ghost tours, so I imagine October would be an ideal time to return being that I love all that kind of stuff and Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday! This future trip is an absolute must! I can’t remember the last time I fell so hard in love with a new city.

After our extensive lil’ trip to St. Augustine we felt that we needed another lowkey day, so we returned to Jacksonville Beach the following day. This time though we parked in a parking lot far from where we had parked the first day and there was certainly far more people. Granted it was a Sunday, so the crowds were to be expected and thankfully everyone was doing an excellent job of social distancing, so we pressed on. Luckily, after we were there for maybe a hour or so, it started to lightning pretty extensively and the lifeguard made everyone come in from the water. The rain was light, so Florida Nancy and I just sat there in our beach chairs and let it rain on us. We didn’t leave, but thankfully far more than half of the others did. The lightning quit after about twenty minutes, but the light rain continued and I figured since I was already wet, I was going to get back in the ocean.

I was ever so glad I did! It was surreal experiencing the water from above and below! I don’t trust myself to bring my phone out into the ocean with me – despite the fact I could always stand anywhere we were – I’m sure as shit not about to risk losing it, but this is one case I so badly wish I had! The way in which the water looked as the rain hit it was truly picturesque. I’d never seen anything like it. It didn’t have the same effect that rain does on still water, the movement of the waves mixed with that of the rain was truly a beautiful sight to behold. It’s enchanting effect had me ever so thankful we didn’t leave all because of a little bit of lightning.

The last full day Florida Nancy and I had together was spent at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens and let me tell you what, that place was THE BEST! Those of us reading from St. Louis can attest that we’ve all been EXTREMELY spoiled by the world-class institution that is our free-of-charge zoo, but the Jacksonville one was pretty close and absolutely incredible!

It was an economical $26 to get in and I didn’t regret that admittance fee one bit. It was quite interesting to me how they split the zoo up by continents. They had Africa, South America, Asia, Australia, and then a large section dedicated to local Floridian animals. Each part was fairly decent in size and showcased a wide variety of animals from each region. One thing that we both loved was the fact that rather than having a single Herpetarium (reptile house) they had one for each of the five sections. They were infinitely smaller in size than the one in St. Louis, but nonetheless, they served their purpose and proved to be an absolute blessing all the while. It was so damn hot that day that these well air-conditioned houses provided some much needed relief from the heat!

There was also a surprising number of animal feeding opportunities such as giraffe, stingrays, and many others. I loved the giraffe encounter because the animal was literally right there! We could’ve petted it if we wanted to. Reminded me of the giraffe park I went to when I was in Kenya back in 2007. It was really a neat attraction. The gardens portion of Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens was smaller, but they did well with it. The majority of the gardens were focused in the Asian part, but those were also the best ones. I felt just like Mulan walking through that Chinese garden. I couldn’t help myself from singing a few bars of “Reflection” and of course by a few bars I obviously mean the entire song. What a jam! I cannot wait for the live-action Mulan to be released soon, but I’m a little bit bitter than I’m not going to get to see it in theaters. I would’ve happily waited a few more months to do so, but it is what it is.

The zoo proved to be like a day at Disneyland as we both neared nearly 12,000 steps! Thankfully it wasn’t really crowded at all. Only really in the African and Floridian parts of the park were we near others, but those were the first two areas you come upon on the designated pathway they had laid out due to COVID-19 restrictions. Once we got down to Asia and Australia we had many of those gardens and animal exhibits all to ourselves and that was a true blessing! That day was the single longest period of time I’ve ever had to wear my mask continuously and I was not loving it. Whenever we found ourselves alone while we meandered through the Asian and Australian portions of the park, I definitely did take my mask off. That heat was just baking away at me. Anytime I saw another zoo-loving individual though I would promptly put it back on. Thankfully by that point in the afternoon those moments were few and far in between.

The next day Florida Nancy had to leave in the afternoon to go and house/animal sit for a friend of hers and during the day we didn’t really do much other than watch the exact moment when MSNBC announced that Kamala Harris would be Joe Biden’s pick for Vice President – not going to lie – I had some tears in my eyes at that. She was always my dream pick so hearing my dream become my reality was really a wonderful moment. I was ever so thankful for that emotional high because not too long later I was experiencing a crashing emotional low.

Florida Nancy had just left and I was continuing to watch the news unfold about Kamala when my Californian Brother, Logan, text me with some screenshots from Snapchat. I replied to him what I replied to him over Snapchat and he told me that something was wrong and my account no longer existed or I had blocked him. I would obviously never block him, so instantly I tried to go on my Snapchat and it didn’t exist! I tried logging in and it kept telling me my username couldn’t be found! I was flabbergasted! WHAT IN THE WORLD WAS GOING ON!?! Snapchat is my absolute favorite social media app! I then promptly went to my email and saw that Snapchat had sent me one saying that my account had been deleted due to me allegedly violating their terms of service! WHAT!?!

I literally sat there and read through the ENTIRE twenty-three point list of Snapchat’s terms and conditions to see what I could have possibly done and nothing seemed to match. I thought that maybe they felt I was soliciting with my blog by including it as an attachment to my snaps, but I’d been doing that for over two years, so why suspend me now!?! I certainly never sent any crude pictures, so I was clueless. The email Snapchat sent me said that they would not reply to me if I replied to that email, so instead, I wrote them a brand new one inquiring about the deletion of my account and telling them I strongly believed that they had made a mistake. I knew that this couldn’t possibly be right, but nonetheless, my stress levels were shooting up through the roof!

To amplify my stress, I was being bombarded by concerned friends messaging me over text, Facebook, and Instagram wondering if and why I had blocked them or what happened to my Snapchat. I had eleven people in twenty minutes messaging me about this! It became quite overwhelming for me because I had already crashed down from that extremely emotional high of learning about Kamala and now I was in the pits with this Snapchat debacle. It felt really nice knowing that so many people noticed and cared about this unexpectedly bizarre scenario I had found myself in.

Well, about a hour after Logan’s initial text and roughly maybe a half hour from me sending Snapchat my email I tried to log in again and like magic, it worked! I don’t know what happened, but it logged me back into my account and literally everything was exactly as it had been. In fear of having been hacked, I promptly changed my password and then sent everyone who was messaging me a snap letting them know I was back in business! It was such a scary and stressful scenario for me. I live for my snaps, so thinking that I might not ever have them again was honestly making me sick.

I knew that I was in dire need of a true life pick-me-up, so after resolving that debacle, I drove myself to Olive Garden because when you’re there, you’re family. Sidebar – I don’t see family as just being blood relatives, I see them as being who you choose for them to be. Florida Nancy for example is family to me because I care about her greatly. Despite being nearly thirty years older than me, she is unquestionably one of my best friends, which for me makes her family. My Californian Brother, Logan, and I are by no means Blood Brothers, but in my heart he is 100% my baby brother. I love that kid with every beat of my heart and he has ALWAYS had my back, so it was no surprise that he had a solid ten minutes on the next person who messaged me about my missing Snapchat. He’s been a Day One since day one.

The next day I left at 8:00 in the morning and had a less-than-desirable drive home. I had the shits that morning and by the time 2:00 in the afternoon rolled around I had pooped no less than EIGHT TIMES since waking up at 7:00! That’s insane! BUT great news is that when I weighed myself at the gym the very next day, I weighed an ironic eight pounds less than I did before vacation, so all that pooping ended up providing me with some great weight loss. It could also be the extreme amount of water weight I lost from all the sweating at the zoo and St. Augustine, but I’m pretty sure it was the pooping.

A HUGE THANK YOU to my near and dear friend Florida Nancy and her son, Dylan, for allowing me to come and stay with them for a week! I truly had THE BEST time and loved having this fresh opportunity to create memories that will sustain us all a lifetime. I cannot wait for your new life to continue to unfold and am already looking forward to the next time we can all get together again, whenever that may be! MISS YOU BOTH ALREADY!

As always, THANK YOU for reading! PLEASE feel free to leave me a comment BELOW the ads! You all know how much I LOVE reading and responding to them, so do not hesitate to leave one below! I’ll be sharing an omitted story from my book next week to coincide with me sending my query letter/book proposal out into the world of literary agents, so this should certainly give you all something to look forward to! So until next time, I hope you have THE BEST week ever!