After Williamsburg I was able to fly down to Jacksonville. Oscar met me there. We were able to spend a whole week with Troy! He was a great tour guide and chauffeur. We had a great time. Here are some pictures of just some of the things we did.
Some swimming in Troy's pool.
We drove to Manatee Springs, outside of Gainesville. This place was amazing. It is a natural spring that comes out of the ground, in a cave (you can actually dive down into it). The water is crystal clear, and where the spring is it is a beautiful clear blue. Manatee Springs is a state park that you can swim in and stuff. The water is about chest deep until you get to the hole where the spring is, and then it is really deep, kind of eerie. We were able to snorkel around and see it pretty well. It also put off a really strong current. When then Manatees come into the swimming hole they shut it down, so we didn't see any. The water temp is also about 70 degrees, the coldest water in Florida right now.
We spent a day at JAX Beach with some of Troy's friends. It was a little cloudy at first, but them the sun came out and we were back wishing it was cloudy. I think that was one of the hottest days, with lots of humidity. It rained later.
St. Augustine, the oldest city in the country. We went to my favorite place- the Alligator Farm. This is an actual Zoological operation, so it is very educational. We got to feed the alligators, Troy almost got eaten by one, as you can see. We also took some cool video of the largest alligator, Maximo, 16 feet long, eating some rats. Usually they feed them nutria, but this was a training exercise. An alligator that size needs about 70 pounds of meat a year. They have a pretty slow metabolism.
Cape Canaveral, Kennedy Space Center
If you look close at the first picture you will see the orange tip of the fuel tank, attached to the Shuttle. It will go to the launch pad to start the 30 day count down. The next launch is on August 7. In a few years NASA is going to begin another Moon exploration program (like Apollo).
In one picture we were waiting in line to ride the Shuttle Launch Similation.
This is at a going away party for some of Troy's Navy friends. Their ship ran aground in the middle of their six month deployment, so they got to come home. Now they are going back out.
We spent a day at Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure. This is Troy and I before Rip Saw Falls (like Splash Mountain, but way better, and way wetter)
This is us after. We were literally soaked. We rode this twice. The second time, at the very end of the ride, we were shot in the face with water guns on the side of the ride, so hard that my sun glasses got shot off my head. Later, while walking on the bridge over the falls, we found out some people had actually paid quarters to shoot all of us!
Troy took this picture, with no flash. After getting soaked on Rip Saw Falls, we didn't have time to dry off before the thunderstorm came and temporarily shut the rides down.
We saw this turtle in the middle of the road in Troy's neighborhood. Most likely making its way to the pond. So Oscar, being a good samaritan, picks up the turtle in the middle, so as not to get bitten and moved it over to the grass. These turtles, however, have long bendy back legs that clawed him the whole time. He said it was worse than Nelles, but I never saw a single scratch.
