Before we even started on this trip Back East, my sister and I each had compiled a list of things we wanted to do while we were in Jacksonville. One of the main things was to visit our maternal grandmother's grave. We never knew her because she died when she was just 41 years old and my mother was 13. On June 14th, Manners, Linda, and I set out for the Evergreen Cemetery (<---link) in Jacksonville. Unfortunately, Susan had to work that day so wasn't able to go with us. As soon as we got inside the cemetery, a huge owl swooped down in front of our car and landed in a nearby tree. Linda got out her camera and managed to get a shot of this magnificent creature. He stayed in that tree almost the entire time we were at the cemetery. It was a good omen.
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| Cemetery Owl |
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| At our grandmother's gravesite |
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| Elizabeth Agness Walters, our maternal grandmother |
After visiting the grave and paying our respects, we rode walked around the cemetery a bit more. As you know if you are a regular reader of this blog, Linda and I like to walk around cemeteries. Linda snapped this picture of a very interesting tree.
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| Wonder why this tree grew into this shape? |
HANGING OUT
We had done so much the first part of our last week in Jacksonville that we decided to just relax around the house a bit. I took some more pictures around the yard and on our morning walks, we smoked some corn on my sister's smoker, grilled some fabulous hamburgers that Susan had made up, and basically just enjoyed each other's company.
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| Delicate little flowers seen on our walk |
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| Polydamus Swallowtail |
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| Some of our favorite Eastern birds Mourning Dove, Blue Jay (top) Cardinal, Red-Breasted Woodpecker (bottom) |
During our stay in Jacksonville we had quite a bit of rain, with several big thunderstorms in the evening. All that rain meant that the grass grew at a fast rate, so Manners had to mow several times while we were there. Here she is in her mowing get-up, complete with headphones to listen to music!
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| Not everyone was on vacation while we were there! |
Since cooking in one of my favorite things to do, I decided that we were going to have an Instant Pot Tutorial lesson while I was there. Manners and Susan had not used their Instant Pot yet, so it was a good opportunity to get them set up. Manners even filmed it on her phone!
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| I finally put my teaching skills to use! |
We also got to meet a few more of the resident kitties. This fellow below is named Tangelo, also known as Mr. T, and he was such a love! We wanted to take him home with us, but I am sure Summer Girl would not have approved!
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| Tangelo |
This sweetie below is Will, one of the outside kitties. His companion, Kate, is also outside but I wasn't able to get a picture of her. Can you guess who they are named for?
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| Outdoor kitty Will |
We also got to witness Mimi putting on her favorite sweater. It was almost too much cuteness to bear! We wanted to bring her home with us, but Susan was having none of that and said she would fight us for her!
I'm so glad I got to get some pictures and video of my all-time favorite Eastern bird, the Northern Cardinal. I sat outside one hot day and got this video of a male chirping up in a tree.
OUR ONE BIG PROBLEM FOR THE ENTIRE TRIP
Remember way back when I posted my first blog about this trip, I mentioned that on our first day, as we got on the interstate outside of Yakima, I noticed the steering wheel on Linda's car was crooked. Well, that came back to haunt us on our last Saturday in Jacksonville. That day, on our way back from a shopping trip, we noticed a strange noise, almost like something was stuck underneath the car. Upon arriving back at the house, we checked all around the car and Linda finally noticed that the back tires had NO TREAD! These were brand new tires before we left home and they probably only had about 3,500 miles on them, so we could not believe the back tires were slick!
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| Slick tires |
The crooked steering wheel was prophetic because we had driven all the way across the country with our tires out of alignment (which, by the way, was supposedly done when the new tires were put on). Anyway, we bought two new tires on Saturday and had them aligned on Monday, this time by someone who knew what they were doing. Don't worry, we got reimbursed for all this from the company who put the tires on. We were just thankful that nothing happened while we were unknowingly driving all the way across the United States with tires that were getting slicker by the mile.
BIRTHDAYS & FATHER'S DAY
Since the four of us hadn't been together for many years, we had missed out on celebrating our birthdays together. Since our last Sunday in Jacksonville also happened to be Father's Day, we decided to celebrate all of our birthdays then, and also pay tribute to our fathers who are no longer with us. We also wanted to pay tribute to our cousin Robert Harris, (<---link) who passed away last November.
Mimi got all dressed up in her stunning birthday dress for the occasion. Susan called her dad in Canada and chatted with him, as she is the only one of us lucky enough to still have her father around. We had a wonderful meal that night, plus some cupcakes for dessert. It was a good day.
PARTING SHOT (from Jacksonville)
Our last day in Jacksonville was spent getting the tires aligned on Linda's car and packing up all our stuff for our trip so we could head out bright and early the next morning to drive to Lumberton, NC. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Manners' and Susan's house and made plans to return in a couple of years. Oh, and those to-do lists that my sister and I made up? Well, we didn't get to do everything but we did check off most of the major items. We are already making up new lists for next time!
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| Goodbye from Mimi |
Next week's blog will begin our visit in Lumberton. I imagine that will most likely take up a couple of blogs as I want to include a lot of pictures of where we stayed, the historic Luther Henry Caldwell House (<---link). So stay tuned for next week's blog!
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