Community camping at Hanna Park with our friends

What a dream week of camping we just had at Hanna Park in Jacksonville, Florida. Our friends Val and JF flew from Ottawa to come camping with us for a week and Helen Anne and Dan and the kids camped right by us too. A little community on the road. Exactly what we needed at this point of our trip!

Val and JF are also translators and JF is really good in the marketing stuff, among other things. I remember when I worked in an ad agency in the old days and I had a pitch to come up with for the next day. That night we were going out together to a Mexican restaurant and he was just firing up the best ideas over sangria and tacos. This time around, when a big rush contract fell on my lap Friday at a quarter to 5 (for Tuesday morning - and advertisement is not my usual line of work), I was so grateful he was there. Coming up with ideas together over gin and tonic while washing camping dishes didn't even felt like work!

Mountain biking with friends. Dropping our bikes in the middle of the trail because we spotted a barred owl that looked back at us for a while. Further down in the thick jungle-like forest, finding a very loud meowing and snuggly cat that looked so out of place that we felt it might have been a lost RV cat that needed to be saved... until JF and Mara caught up with us and reminded us that we were not in the middle of Big Bend National Park, but in a county park and that there were houses 350 meters away... I guess we were still in animal life saving mode...

Seeing how fast birds can build a nest when our friends left the back door of the van open one morning (in 4 hours they had brought a lot of material in there to start their nest!) 

Removing a tick from a very brave 5 yo little girl's neck (so glad for Google search even while camping!).


Organic frozen yogurt at Happy Cup in Jacksonville. Walking hand in hand with friends.

Hilarious Seinfeld impersonations. A shrimp peeling marathon. Hauling moss in firewood bags and made up games.

Hair cutting lessons. Flute lessons. Juice making lesson.

Very wet days and nights. Bike bruises. Sun burns. Bug bites.

And many, many, MANY games of Carcassonne at *almost* every hour of the day and night.

This is what group camping memories are made of...

Days at sea in good company

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There are lots of treasure hunters along the Florida East Coast. There are always at least a couple of these guys every time we go to the beach.

We were so surprised to see a fisherman catch a baby hammerhead shark (by accident, he said it happens quite frequently around these parts..). The kids were fascinated!

Kite flying and Cormorant rescuing

What an adventure we had today at the beach! A cormorant was hanging very close to shore in the tides when we noticed a huge bulge on his neck and something sticking out of his beak. The poor thing was choking on something, he was collapsing in the waves and needed help badly. We thought it was a piece of plastic at first and tried to approach him to help him. We were with our friends' kids and we were all talking very gently to him and he finally let us close. My friend held him while I pet him for a few seconds to reassure him. He was looking straight at me. Then he let me open his big beak and I pulled and pulled on the slippery tail of the fish and finally, it came out of his throat. The bird gave me one last glance and flew away, finally freed! The kids were ecstatic and so were we! Wow!

Mr. Fish quickly became a biology class (and subject to all sorts of pirate torture). Of course, it was long dead in the Cormorant's throat (and then *very dead* after more "exploration" as 5 yo Anick said)...

And we all bursted out laughing when Mathilde said, once we suggested it was time to go back to our campsites to make dinner: Oh no! We're just about to find the intestines!

The Pirates and Treasures Museum and more of St. Augustine

Given the girls' interest in everything pirates and treasures, we were delighted to find out there was a great museum bearing exactly that name in St. Augustine with raving reviews. There even was a treasure hunt in the museum!

You can see more of the museum here. The treasure collection contains some of the most amazing pirate artifacts in the world!

The interactive books and walls were such a great addition. There were interactive touch screen panels in beautiful frames in many places, filled with visuals and historic facts about real life pirates. Similarly, the interactive wall had a large map of all the original pirate settlements ready for you to select any one of them. When you touched a settlement, for example, Havana, Cuba, a life-sized video of the museum's owner, Pat Croce, popped up and explained in fascinating detail the significance of each settlement at its time.

 Firing the canon!

When we left the museum, the girls went for ice cream with Val and JF, and JF and I went for iced decaf coffees and off to explore St. Augustine quickly. We liked what we saw, even if some of it felt a bit fake to us... A bit of a mix of Quebec City and Skagway, Alaska. We'd love to see more!