It’s a wrap for JAX!
Ah, Jacksonville. The city that brought us Lynyrd Skynyrd and offers one of the most booming sea ports in the nation. Jacksonville.
As luck would have it, we were here in a very hot and humid time for the city, although we did not let this hinder the explorations. Our first impression came in the form of a small restaurant called BB’s, which continued the southern tradition so far of offering delicious cakes which we couldn’t resist. With key lime, rocky road, and white berry cake behind us, we moved on to our greatest asset in this warm city: the hotel pool. There is something negative to be said about spending one’s time in the hotel but I will argue that we greatly benefited from said “hotel pool time.” For one, Kait and Dave got to cool off and refresh after a rigorous work day, Gary could spend some quality time outside working on his tan while we were recording and I had some excellent (be it exhausting), exercise as I swam laps in the morning.
Hotel time aside, we did get to explore downtown in the evenings and my favorite experience was walking down the Westside/Historic Avondale/Saint Johns Avenue area. While we waited for a table on Friday night, I took a stroll down the street and popped in to every other restaurant or so to take a peek. Managers greeted me, hostesses gave me a quick tour and chalkboard menus listing “tonight’s specials” intrigued me. Espresso rubbed filet mingon? Still curious about that.
If you do go down to Jacksonville, I recommend The Landing. It’s a port/retail combo, and we had a terrific time meeting the folks that passed by (both shoppers and retail owners). The place is Jacksonville’s riverfront icon. But I will stop rambling about the city and get on to its best feature: the people.
Here are a couple of the people we met and their great stories:
Meet Dale Cockley:
My aha moment happened after playing music for people. I am a volunteer for the Ronald McDonald House and during an event, I was playing my guitar and a young girl came up to me and she was very excited. Later her mother explained to me that her daughter was deaf and had surgery on her ear. My music was the first sound that she heard.
Meet Adrian Pickett:
My aha moment came when I realized that my art was powerful for people. I am an artist, and once there was a veteran who walked through my gallery and started crying at one of the pieces. It made me realize that my art, something that I’ve been doing since grade school, is touching people’s souls.
So that is the wrap-up for Jacksonville! Thank you so much to everyone who came out. I can’t believe that we are moving onto Charleston now! Time flies.
