Jacksonville!

We packed up this morning, ready for our trip to Jacksonville. Then we headed out for a bike ride, which took us to the Stephen Foster Museum, auditorium, and carillon tower to view a special display. It was unclear what the theme was: the various displays seemed quite unrelated.

The first thing we saw was a large collection of very old toy tractors and farm equipment. Another display included a variety of model trains, mainly from the nineteen fifties and sixties. A couple of older men were operating some of them, and we enjoyed a conversation with them. One woman was showing off a display of NASA memorabilia her father had collected. He was in quality control during the early years of the space program and had collected autographed photos of early astronauts.

We finally got on the road and went south to I-10 and then east to Jacksonville, with a stop for lunch and fuel. We pulled into Big Tree RV Park with rain pouring down on us. Jim pulled up on a golf cart and directed us to a space where we were able to see the southern sky--but it has only 30 amp electricity. We'll be okay with that as long as we don't need both air conditioners at once. Everything was going fine setting up, when suddenly the TV lift decided to go down on its own--and then died. It wouldn't respond to either the remote or the switch. Ken checked the circuit breaker, which was fine. Ken looked for a user manual for the lift, but we evidently don't have any information about it at all. He couldn't find anything on Google, so he posted a request for suggestions on the New Horizons Owners Group forum.

Meanwhile we called Aunt Iris and offered to bring dinner over, but she said that Beth was bringing over fish dinners from the Kingfish Tournament. We drove over, arriving just before Beth. Aunt Iris was feeding Beth's cat when a stray cat suddenly attacked her. It was one that Beth has been feeding, and no one knows why exactly. It ripped up the top of her foot and sunk a fang in. Iris was bleeding profusely, but decided to go home and go to the urgent care clinic in the morning. Beth came over to help clean up the blood and bandage her mom's foot. Neither one of them got much sleep last night. Iris went to urgent care, but they sent her to the ER. Now she is bandaged and keeping her foot elevated and taking antibiotics.

We had a good dinner and conversation. Beth went home to get some sleep. We stayed around to finish our laundry and then headed home to get some sleep ourselves. Tomorrow Iris and Beth will come over to visit and see our place.


We are planning to get to the beach sometime, but the weather may not cooperate. There's a good chance of storms every day for the next week.