Day One: Trip To NAS Jacksonville

Well, last weekend Deb and I went to Jacksonville for five days. My Dad was having surgery at the Mayo Clinic for an aneurysm in his neck. We decided to go down because I just felt better being there for it. Anyway, I usually do quick blogs from the road but because I had bad signal in Jacksonville, I couldn't get the phone hooked up to WiFi and I didn't want another $10 charge for data over-usage, I am just now getting to these blogs about our time in the Sunshine State. We left early last Saturday morning and our route took us down GA 400 to I-75 and through Atlanta.

Buckhead.

Downtown Atlanta.

 After about two hours, give or take, we reached Macon. It was here that we had two choice on our route. We could just continue down I-75 and cut across to Jacksonville or head down I-16 to Savannah and connect with I-95 to Florida. While it was 10 minutes longer we decided to go via I-16, mostly because I had not been this way before. On our way down I-16 we stopped for gas around Dublin and there was $1.79 gas, never thought I would see that again.

Gas at the BP was $1.89, but across the street was $1.79.

After reaching Savannah we connected to I-95. It has been a while since I had been on this stretch of road that I once use to travel regularly. We passed through places like Darien, Brunswick and the exit to Jekyll Island.

House around Brunswick.

River bridge.

Before long we reached the Florida State line and one of my favorite welcome centers. You have to love a welcome center when it has free orange juice (and now grapefruit) and some great picture opportunities and displays.

Sunshine & palm trees.

Florida Welcome Center.

Here are some of the places to take pictures.

With dolphin...

...& sign...

& message for Rick Scott.

Deb...

...in Florida...

...with an astronaut.

My new buddy.

Here was the coolest exhibit that featured pictures of animals in Florida and caste of tracks.

Black Bear...

...& tracks.

This guy has a hockey team named after them.

Panther tracks.

The animal Florida is synonymous with...

...here is his tracks.

Beside the Gator are an Otter, Deer & Gray Fox.

Let's not forget the Turkey.

Another thing around the welcome center was birds, plenty of birds. It looked like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

Looks like a scene from The Birds.

This bird looks like a statue.

This guy was looking for food.

What are you looking at?

When we finally reached Jacksonville it was on the way to the Navy Lodge and where I thought it was, Naval Station Mayport, well...

Headed up...

...the Dames Point Bridge...

...on I-295.

Just liked this picture.

Wrong place...

The Navy Lodge wasn't at Mayport, but at the Naval Air Station Jacksonville, NAS Jax for short. After a 40 minute delay we finally arrived at the Navy Lodge.

...as the sun went down we arrived...

...at the right one.

Blue Angel F-18 Hornet.

Navy Lodge sign.