(I may have to re-update these photos when I return to Chicago after I do some editing in Picasa2, which I don't have on my old laptop.)
What a long day it has been! We left this morning before 7:30 am Central Time, but didn't get to our hotel room until after 7:30 pm Eastern Time. A cab driver who was a little bit forgetful, a pleasant El ride, a slightly delayed flight to Atlanta because of rain, and then a really delayed flight (about 2 hrs) to Jacksonville because of the weather. And then 1.5 hours in an airport shuttle van driving around the city to the beach, getting stuck in rush hour traffic, and as those of you who know me would expect, a terrible bout of nausea. Should have taken the Dramamine this morning between the turbulence in the air and the stop-and-go on the 202.
Since we drove around so much of Jacksonville, I can say that what I saw didn't seem all that exciting. Downtown reminds me of St. Louis except St. Louis had the Arch and seemed a little bit more exciting and nicer. They both have a river, highways, a "tourist spot" (Jacksonville Landing/St. Louis Union Station), hotel chains, not a lot of skyscrapers and not a whole lot of nice buildings outside of the very center (in the downtown area). Jax has a lot of highways generally, and it's really spread out. Not sure I'd come back to the city itself for tourism. No wonder people were surprised that they were hosting the Superbowl.
Anyway, we're staying at an inn on Atlantic Beach called the Sea Turtle Inn. It's a really cute inn and our room is fantastic. There's a lot of little shops and restaurants, and I'm really hoping it doesn't rain tomorrow morning so that we can walk along the beach and around the town. Of course, we would have gotten to do that had we arrived on time, but oh well, it happens. :)
I think the bathroom layout in our room is pretty:
And we got a really great room:
After we got settled, it was time for dinner. We decided on the Ragtime Tavern down the block and it was yummy!
For appetizer, we got the cajun crawfish dip:
Alvin got shrimp & linguine for his entree - it was perfect, not heavy at all, but so flavorful:
I got the blackened tuna salad, which was also quite yummy:
Key lime cheesecake:
And last but not least... despite the rain, the late arrival, the clouds, the not-so-hot temperature... I'm finally someplace where palm trees can grow. Someplace warm. Someplace not 35 degrees. Vacation.
I think this post is long enough to hold me over to whenever I can post next (unless I decide to post by email when I'm away...). How are you doing?
3 comments:
Hey, I'm not sure if I was confused before or if there was less text on this post on previous days. Whooooo finals.
Ok,I'm now officially babbling, but have you ever been to the blog that is the next one from yours? The header has a picture from some version of final fantasy. I don't think it's the characters from FF8 (I think that was the one)... but somehow the style is familiar. Yup. Ok that is all.
You're not crazy. I had written this post when we were in Atlantic Beach but Blogger was going crazy and I tried for about an hour but it wouldn't post. I finally got it to post when we got back to Jacksonville. :)
Also, I think clicking next sends you to any random blog (and usually one that was recently updated), so I'm not sure which one you saw. ;-)
Post a Comment