Our stay in Jacksonville was the rough patch of our trip. It was the foul-up that had to happen, since few real-world plans unfold the way they were formulated.
When we crossed the border from Georgia to Florida, we felt giddy. This stretch of the trip was the culmination of months of planning and waiting, waiting and planning. The sunset washed the palms orange. The streets were clean, and the buildings were clearly filled with well-moneyed inhabitants. Beautiful.
We made for Amelia Island, wanting to inspect it before checking in with our Airbnb hosts. We drove through pristine neighborhoods and passed country clubs that made us feel sub-human. When we arrived at the beach, the sunset was a smudge of pastel colors that cast a lavender glow on the waves.
And that was when Jacksonville Phase peaked.
Amelia Island was the primary reason for stopping in the Jacksonville area. The Internet, that series of tubes in the ether, had given us the impression that the island was chock full of fossilized shark teeth. So many teeth could be found, the Internet said, you’d be almost embarrassed to collect such an obscene number of small, black, old things.
During the entire next day, we found only three teeth and a UV index of 11. Disappointment #1.
Then there was our Airbnb situation. To say it was sketchy would be an understatement. Our female host was nice enough, though a little rough around the edges. Her boyfriend, however, with his dark circles and spacey gaze, gave me the impression that he needed a hit desperately.
Their place smelled like two dogs, two cats, and two druggies lived there, which they did. Actually, I’m not even sure what that means; all I can say is the place smelled bad in a way I haven’t experienced before. I felt like my money was going directly to support their habits, or possibly to add to the collection of drug-related tomes seated on their living room bookshelf. I did not enjoy going back to there each night. Disappointment #2.
Disappointment #3 was our fault. For our day trip to St. Augustine, we made the mistake of doing absolutely no research about where we should concentrate our sightseeing efforts–a strategy that worked well enough in Washington, Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah, but was bound to fail sooner or later–and apparently ended up in a really dumb area.
The level of sellout to tourism in this area astounded us. Grotesque, disproportionate statues. Nauseating prices. Total obscuration of historical structures by marketing/advertisement apparatus. But before we could correct course and find the part of the city we wouldn’t hate, a storm came up, and we spent the rest of the night in a Starbucks, albeit the nicest one we’ve been to. (Didn’t want to return to the drug house too soon.)
Next time, our visit to St. Augustine will be planned carefully, because it seems like a really cool place if you know what you’re doing.
So we didn’t do much of interest around Jacksonville, but we managed to enjoy our time there nonetheless. After all, it’s difficult to be dissatisfied while sitting on a subtropical beach. We used the area as a stepping stone to southwest Florida, and to that end, it served its purpose. Now, on to better times in better places.
I would not have gone back to the Airbnb no matter what!!