Day 3 (February 16, 2025):

Another good night’s sleep was followed by another wonderful breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant, where the highlight was a conversation with one of the servers, a woman in her 60s who was born in Saint Kitts, raised in St. Thomas, and moved to the United States 18 years ago. We had quite the conversation about church and faith, and we couldn’t help but be stuck by the fact that the likelihood of such a conversation with a Marriott employee in Canada would almost certainly never happen. As we have seen throughout our weekend here, faith and Christianity are intertwined with life in this north Floridian city.

At 9:30 AM, we set off for the day. The plan was to visit a State Park on the coast, north of the city. Following that, we wanted to visit a slave plantation. And if time permitted after that, the plan was to do the Northbank Riverwalk in downtown Jacksonville, with the Museum of Contemporary Art as a fallback plan in the event of rain. In the end, we did all four! At the end of our visit to the State Park, the heavens opened, and the rain came pouring down. For the next two hours, it was either raining or drizzling, making outdoor activities difficult. But still, we did what we could, and enjoyed the sites immensely. We arrived back at the hotel by 4:30 PM, and instead of dinner out tonight, we enjoyed the excellent hors d’oeuvres in the Concierge Lounge on the hotel’s 9th floor.

We called it a night fairly early, in anticipation of an early rise and drive back to Orlando tomorrow morning.

As we were leaving the hotel this morning, we saw these four Canada geese walking across the adjacent parking lot. It reminded me of that famous Beatles photo, where they are crossing Abbey Lane in London. So with a little help from Google Search, and an iPhone photo editing trick, our four Canadian friends turned into this:

On the way north this morning towards Little Talbot Island State Park, we passed a mosque. In a place that seems to have a church on every second block, this was the first mosque we had seen. And all weekend, we have just seen one person wearing a hijab. So seeing a mask in these parts is like finding a needle in a haystack. 

The Dames Point Bridge is located in Jacksonville, Florida on Interstate 295 East Beltway, crossing the St. Johns River. The bridge's official name is the Napoleon Bonaparte Broward Bridge. The bridge is one of the largest cable-stayed bridges in the United States. Construction began in 1985 and was completed in 1989. It connects the north and south sides of Jacksonville.

As the St. John’s river near the open Atlantic, the port of Jacksonville shows itself to be an incredibly industrial and busy place. The Jacksonville Port Authority has a very large container port on Blount Island in the middle of the river. Even the vehicle transportation ships that we see at the Dartmouth Auto Port back home carrying 7000 vehicles, also stop here to unload vehicles. 

Further along the St. John’s river, even closer to the mouth of the river, the heavy industry gives way to fishing vessels.

Little Talbott Island State Park

At 10:30 AM, we pulled into little Talbott Island State Park, which was our target destination for the morning.

As you can see from the Google maps image above, the park has miles and miles of white sand Beach. We did a 3 km round-trip walk on the beach, and would have done a bit further, had a very nasty rain storm not started brewing on the horizon.

This “mat path” from the park’s parking lot to the beach is an ingenious idea for helping those with mobility issues get to the beach edge.

Both Little Talbot Island State Park and its sister park to the north, Big Talbot Island State Park, are known for their driftwood.

Black and gray sand mix in with the white sand to create the most amazing textures. With the stubby palm trees in the background and the incredible sky, I just love the pallet of colours in this photo.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a plethora and quantity of shells in the sand of a beach anywhere like we saw at Little Talbot Island State Park.

As we were walking northward on the beach, the sky started to change. In the space of 31 minutes, it went from a beautiful sky to one that grew increasingly threatening. We made it back to the car and literally about a minute later, those black clouds were over us and opened with fury.

As evidenced by this temperature graph for today, it was 79°F (26°C) during our beach walk. The temperature literally dropped to 59°F (14°C) within a few minutes of the rain storm beginning.

Fort George Island

After leaving the park, the next stop was Fort George Island, site of both a State historical site and a National Parks Service historical site.

The Ribault Club is now a Florida state historic site, Located on Fort George Island.

We drove a six-mile loop around Fort George Island. Much of the distance, comprise narrow roads through creepy swamp territory with trees you might imagine in a scene from Hansel and Gretel.

An aerial view of Kingsley plantation. The owner’s mansion is located near the river at the top of the photo, and the semicircle of small structures along the bottom of the photo are the small houses where the slaves lived.

This manor house was the home of the plantation owner.

The barn. 

Only one of the slave houses has been rebuilt. The rest, to the left in the photo above, are the remains of the original structures.

As we were preparing to leave, a peacock came to see us off.

This diagram shows where slaves from West Africa would be shackled on the transatlantic crossing to Florida. If you can, zoom in on this photo to see the unbelievable conditions that these poor people were forced to bear on those crossings. Many of them died enroute, as surviving such a long crossing in such squalor, was close to impossible.

Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville

The Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) of the University of North Florida contains four floors of exhibitions. It is quite well done. The building housing MOCA is the former Western Union office building in Jacksonville.

Dustin Sims’ Vigilance, 2024.

Ruth Mae Mccrane’s Cutting the Rug, 1991.

Joan Mitchell’s Chord III, 1986.

Hebert Singleton’s Heaven Help Us All, circa 1990. This painting seems like a very fitting call to God, given everything happening in the USA right now.

Northbank Riberwalk

This 100’ tall concrete lighthouse replica belongs to First Baptist Church in the heart of downtown Jacksonville. The church built it so that it could have its own light beam. But for the last 20 years or so, the light has had to be turned off, due to complaints from local residents. 

The view across the St. John’s over of Southbank, from downtown Jacksonville. 

Another view of the Aslop Bridge, connecting the two sides of Jacksonville’s central business district

Downtown Jacksonville is filled with very impressive murals. But this four story mural on a parking garage next to the Marriott Hotel is quite massive and spectacular

In 1821, Florida became a territory of the United States. The territory’s first governor as part of the Union was Andrew Jackson, for whom the city is named. Full statehood didn’t follow until 1845

Crossing the Aslop bridge. 

Ask a Canadian to name a few symbols of Canada, and they might say the beaver, Tim Hortons, maple syrup, etc. Here in Florida, however, nothing screams “USA” more than all the injury lawyer billboards lining the interstate.