10 - 11 November 2020
No travel.
Rain rain go away, Come again some other day!
We had rain off and on as we awaited the arrival of Tropical Storm Eta scheduled to go right over Jacksonville. Expecting high winds and potential high water, we added lines to the boat. Thankfully, it turned into a non-event for our location.
12 November 2020
No travel.
The rain stopped long enough for us to decide to go for a walk for a change of scenery and to stretch our legs. No sooner did we get to the main road, but the clouds looked ready to drip on us again. Clark suggested we walk the covered docks to check out the boats and stay dry.
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| A little cloudy today. |
The bonus of lots of cloud cover was a great sunset.
13 November 2020
No boat travel.
The rain finally gave us a break and the sun peeked out. Clark suggested we go for a bike ride for a tour of the local parks in the area. We only rode our bikes about 4 or so miles but it felt a lot longer than that having not gotten a lot of exercise while anchoring our way down the east coast.
We started at the Roosevelt Boulevard Bridge, crossed over to tour the parks on the east side of the river, biked up to the Ortega River Bridge, crossed back over to the west side and back to the marina. Enjoying the scenery and the exercise, we stopped at a number of parks along the way. Our average speed was about 1.8 mph given the length of time we were out (about 2 hours) and the distance we traveled. The Google Maps view of our tour is available here.
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| View from the Roosevelt Blvd Bridge |
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| Clark explained that our bike ride would take us through area neighborhoods and over the bridge we could see down river from the Roosevelt Blvd Bridge. |
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| On the road to the first park |
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| Columbus Park |
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| Cortez Park |
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| Seminole Park |
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| Seminole Park |
The next park, Desoto Park, hardly qualified as such. It consisted of a small, somewhat triangular-shaped piece of land with lots of trees on it. Located directly across from an elementary school, it had no park benches and no space for a soccer game. As far as enjoying the park, I could only imagine playing hide and seek behind all the trees.
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| Desoto Park |
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| Fishing at Stockton Park |
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| Stockton Park |
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| Stockton Park |
On our way to the Ortega River Bridge, we swung by Bettes Park.
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| Bettes Park |
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| View on way to the Ortega River Bridge |
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| Lots of Spanish Moss hanging from the trees |
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| View from the Ortega River Bridge |
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| Bridge erected 1926 |
Clark meandered across the bridge leaving me to wonder if they would shoo us off the bridge to open it at some point. We eventually made it to the other side.
Our first stop on the west side of the river was Baker Point Park.
As we admired the view, the bridge opened for a passing boat. What timing! Glad we weren't still meandering across.
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| Bridge opening |
Our last scheduled park was Stinson Park.
As we headed back to the boat, we passed Lakeside Park II which of course made us go look for Lakeside Park I - a bit of an unplanned detour to our park tour.
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| Lakeside Park II consisted of one park bench and a bunch of trees. |
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| Lakeside Park I |
Our post park tour excitement for the afternoon was taking the toilet apart in the master head. Clark started the job on his own, but wrestling with the toilet became more than he could handle singlehanded, so he invited me to join in the fun. There is nothing so delightful as taking a toilet apart in a closed in space on a humid day.
Clark's mission, which he did accomplish, was to replace the seal on our vacuum flush toilet. In the process of getting the toilet reseated, Clark managed to break the toilet seat at the hinge rendering the toilet mostly unusable for someone who wishes to sit down. We have ordered a new toilet seat, and in the mean time, I am using the guest head. Thank goodness we have two heads on the boat!! With Covid constantly on our minds, we are not much inclined to use marina restrooms, so the heads on the boat are getting quite a workout.
I definitely enjoyed the first half of the day a lot more than the second half.
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