A Floridian Fort and Ecological Preserve

Trip Date: August 27-29

I recently took an unexpected trip to Jacksonville, Florida. Unfortunately, not all travel opportunities are for fun and adventure. I went with my Dad and his brother to meet up with other family members to remember and celebrate the life of my cousin, Lynnae, who lost a 10-year battle with cancer. Luckily, my family is the kind that when we get together, no matter what the reason, we enjoy being with each other and it turns into a fun time. The last time I was in Jacksonville was so long ago that I cannot remember a thing about it! But my aunt lives very close to the Fort Caroline National Memorial and the Timucuan Ecological and Historical Preserve, both official and separate units of the National Park System.

The first night we were there, after exchanging general comments with family, we all took a little field trip to a battlement next door that was built for the Spanish-American War, but never completed because the war ended before it was needed. The battlement is built on top of a bluff looking over the St. Johns River. Crews recently just cleared the battlement of any overgrown plant growth, swept the floors clean of dirt, and emptied out the artillery and ammunition storage rooms.

My family, examining all aspects of the Spanish-American War battlements

Looking across and down the battlements to the ammunition storage rooms

Inside the ammunition storage rooms

Multiple levels of walls added as support for the battlements. They are made out of a material called "tabby" that is a mixture of shelly-sand, water, and lime

Beautiful spanish moss hanging from the trees above the battlements

While there were of course some family obligations over the weekend, in our time between some of us wanted to see more of the Jacksonville area since none of us are from there. Just down the road from my aunt's house is the Fort Caroline National Memorial. Built in the early 1500s, Fort Caroline was to be a refuge for the French Hugenots seeking religious freedom in the New World. They built "la Caroline" as their settlement, but fearing that the French were encroaching on their overseas colonies, the Spanish were hot on the trails and in 1565 the Spanish were led by a French traitor to Fort Caroline where they murdered 143 Frenchmen (but no women or children).

A replica of a typical Timucuan shelter. The Timucuan people tried helping the French survive by bringing them local food, but the French were wary of change from their usual diets, rejected the help, and soon starved...

Replica of Fort Caroline from the St. Johns River

Little fiddler crabs scuttling around the sandy riverbank

The entrance to Fort Caroline

Inside Fort Caroline

Replica cannons of the 1500s

Just ahead on the path an armadillo scampered in front of us. It's on the left of the path in the photo

Looking up into more spanish moss

We drove down toward the mouth of the river and took a car ferry across and drove out to Little Talbot Island State Park - the only State Park to win the designation of "Most Beautiful State Park in America" twice...or so they claim. But it was very pretty. We didn't spend much time out there, but just enough to say we've been. Down on the beach lots of dragonflies were buzzing around the debris left high on the beach by the recent passing of Hurricane Irene, which didn't really do anything to Florida except provide them with big waves!

Pelicans on the ferry docks

Little Talbot Island Beach

Boardwalk going out to the beach

We were running out of time in the day, but we made one quick stop at the Kingsley Plantation. This bit of the history of slaves in America is made more interesting by the fact that the plantation owner, Kingsley, married and had a child with one of his slaves. Eventually when Florida joined the United States it was subjected to the laws banning this type of relationship and so Kingsley sent his wife and family to Haiti (or Dominican Republic - I forget!) and later joined them down there. I'm not sure if life on the Kingsley Plantation was much different from others at the time, but the thing I found most interesting was that each slave had his or her daily task (such as pick one quarter acre of sea island cotton), but once that task was complete, they were free to tend to their familys' needs. Now, don't think me an idiot. While this sounds generous, nothing about forced manual labor and being owned paints a pretty picture by any means. It was just one bit of life on this plantation that I hadn't heard existing in many other places.

Back side of the Kingsley Plantation house

Barn on the Kingsley Plantation where the picked sea island cotton was stored

Protected turtle burrows around the Plantation

Palm grove leading up to the front door of the Plantation House from the river

Remnants of the saves' housings, made out of tabby and you can see a lot of the whole shells sticking out from the walls!

I can't really say that I was fortunate to see the sites at these two National Parks due the extending circumstances which led me to be in Jacksonville in the first place. Regardless, the time spent at the parks and in the car between the parks allowed me to get to know other members of my family a little bit better, and for that, I am glad to have made the trip!

Ireland: Dublin

Trip Date: August 8, 2011

Finally, the culmination of a week of beautiful sites and weather in Ireland! We woke up early in the morning, ate our complimentary and traditional Irish Breakfast at the hotel, packed the van, and off we went! I was the unlucky one who got stuck riding in the fold-up seat in the very back of the van next to all of the luggage. It actually wasn't as uncomfortable as I thought, but still, it's cruel and unusual punishment to have a 6'2"-tall person scrunched up in such a small space. The drive across Ireland was pretty, but we were on a big highway and there wasn't much to look at, so I spent most of the drive reading The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson on my iPad. It really didn't take long and before we knew it we were on the outskirts of Dublin, Ireland's largest city and its capital, and then BOOM - we were downtown at our hotel.

We were too early to check in so the clerk behind the desk let us put our luggage in a side storage room for the time being and then Dad, Britta, and Carl left to take the van back to the rental agency at the airport while Lizzie and Rob showed me around Dublin. The rest of my family was here on their first day in Ireland and it seemed like they already knew exactly where to go. Rob confessed that Dublin was his favorite city and that he wanted to move here, so that explained why he was so enthusiastic to be my guide! We walked along the River Liffey, stopping to take photos with statues, until we got to the Temple Bar neighborhood, which has a convoluted history on how it got its moniker: Temple was the name of a family that owned a pub in that neighborhood early in Dublin's shipping days. The Pub was positioned very near a natural sandy shallow spot in the river called a bar. So for its early history, the pub was near this bar and it became known as Temple's Bar - a name that soon became the generic name for the whole neighborhood. Lizzie, Rob, and I snagged a midday meal at a really good restaurant where I sampled Bangers and Mash and my favorite, MUSHY PEAS!!!!

I decided to help this poor dock worker

Rob did too, but he wasn't really putting his back into it...

Looking east down the River Liffey

Rob and Lizzie in front of Temple Bar

More of the Temple Bar neighborhood

Bangers and Mash!!! The sausages are the bangers and the potatoes are the mash

Mmmmmmm....mushy peas......mmmm

This sign was in the restaurant and I felt it was very true

Quays Irish Restaurant. Good food stop!

Lizzie and Rob had to do a little bit of shopping so I split from them and walked through Temple Bar to get to Trinity College. The school is one of Ireland's oldest and most elite, but because it was set up by the English it did not allow Catholics to attend, even as late as the 1970s!! The school is frequently referenced in movies such as the Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman flick, "Far and Away." Trinity College is most notable, however, for two things: it houses The Book of Kells and the Long Room of the Old Library. I was on a tight time-budget so my interpretation of the history of both is not too detailed. Sorry!

The Book of Kells was a sacred manuscript illuminated - or incredibly intricately depicted and illustrated - by monks on the Scottish island of Iona. It was then moved to Kells Abbey in northeast Ireland. Cromwellian forces sought the book as they had heard that it was the most valuable item in Ireland. It was protected and eventually was sent to Trinity College for protection where it now remains under very tight security and protection from cameras and physical touch. You pay about 10 euros to get in to the exhibit and there are fantastic displays showing the history of these types of books, how they were made, who made them, and what materials were used. Some of the minerals and plants used as dyes for the ink used in illuminating the Book of Kells would only have been found at the time as far away as the Middle East, so the finished book truly was a marvel! You can see two pages from the actual Book of Kells, and I believe the museum there switches the pages every so often.

Central campus area for Trinity College

Poorly representative photo of one of the pages from the Book of Kells (photo courtesy of independent.co.uk), but you get a very good idea of the amount of detail that went into just one of the pages of this huge tome!

The Long Room of the Old Library at Trinity College is a masterpiece in and of itself! Frequently seen on posters or in textbooks or even in a few movies, the Long Room is well...a long room full of research books - mostly old medical books - but it is still used by students at the College and you have to be very quiet as you gaze up and around you at the numerous stacks of books, marvelous carved wood, and busts of Irish literary notables. If you're lucky you can tour both the Book of Kells and the Long Room in peace and quiet, but during the middle of the day, expect to wait in a long line and not have the place to yourself. Regardless of how many people are there, it is worth the wait!

The Long Room at the Trinity College Library in Dublin (photo courtesy of teachertravelsblog.com)

Looking west, up the River Liffey to the famous Ha' Penny Bridge

Statue of Daniel O'Connell, an Irish independence advocate from the 1800s who served in the British Parliament at a time when Catholics were not allowed to hold public office

Close-up of one of the statues at a memorial to those who died in the Great Potato Famine given to Ireland by the Government of Canada

Here is the whole haunting memorial

Though not in use anymore, this was a couter-weight system used to raise a section of the road over a canal to a small backwater marina and shipyard!

It was nearing 3:00pm, a rendezvous time the family set up to meet back at the hotel, check in, and decide what to do for the rest of the day. Lizzie and Rob once again went off to check out the east part of the River Liffey, Britta and Carl went to Temple Bar where Britta got coerced to play the fiddle and dance with the musicians at the pub they went to, and my Dad and I  went of on our own.

We first went back to O'Connell Street, one of the main shopping thoroughfares in Dublin. Along the street is the Dublin Post Office where some of the major events of the Easter Uprising of 1916 took place. Along with the rest of major historical and cultural sites of Ireland, the Post Office is a nondescript place, offering interpretations of the history that happened there, but nothing showy or flashy. Just outside the Post Office is the Dublin Spire, the world's tallest sculpture (398 feet), built in the early 2000s as a centerpiece for the newly refashioned downtown shopping district and on the site of the much older Nelson's Pillar (a monument to Lord Nelson that was bombed in 1966).

Façade of the Dublin Post Office

 

Dublin Spire

Looking up the Spire. It is 3 meters at its base and 15 centimeters at the tip

My Dad and I headed back toward Trinity College and to Merrion Square Park where there is a memorial to the Irish writer and poet. We then passed the Irish government building and stopped in at O'Donoghue's Pub for a pint where I met a couple, both professors at the University of Michigan. The pub was really cool - your typical Irish hole-in-the-wall pub with fancy but worn wooden furniture and posters, photos, and international currencies stuck up haphazardly on the walls. Our walking tour then brought us through St. Stephen's Green and over to Dublin Castle, the old seat of Irish Government, where you can walk around the grounds and go in to some of the buildings free of charge. But our real destination was St. Patrick's Cathedral, which is neither a Catholic church nor was it the seat of a Bishop, so it really does not deserve the title even though it is a magnificent building! It was too late in the day for us to go in and even though I made a little scene in front of the security guard, he was stubborn and didn't let us in. We then passed Christ Church - another beautiful church in Dublin - and made our way to the actual Temple Bar for another pint before having to meet up with everyone else for dinner.

Oscar Wilde statue in Merrion Square Park

Irish Parliament Building

Dad standing outside O'Donoghue's Pub

Center square of St. Stephen's Green

Inner courtyard of Dublin Castle. Throughout the summer they have numerous sand sculptures on display

Central courtyard of Dublin Castle

Gatehouse of Dublin Castle

Central tower and chapel of Dublin Castle

Façade of St. Patrick's Cathedral

Christ Church

We met everyone back near the hotel for dinner and then went back to the hotel where we started packing our suitcases one more time. Liz, Rob, and I played some cards, but then went to bed. My flight left Dublin early the next morning and so I needed some sleep, whereas Rob and Liz didn't need to get up for a while.

I absolutely wanted to spend more time in Dublin because it is such a historical city and so many places to explore and get lost and parks to take naps in! I was not disappointed when I left because I just put Dublin on my list of "Things to do Next Time" and will check them off in time. What a fantastic end to such a history and site-filled vacation. I started off these sets of blog posts by mentioning that this was the first family trip in 10 years and while I missed being able to share the time and experiences with my mom and grandparents, I know they were looking down and happy that we were able to do and see everything we did!

But my travels are not quite over yet! I scheduled my return flight to take me through Paris for nearly 24 hours before coming back to the US, so I have one more post from this whole travel excursion! Wait for it. I promise you won't be disappointed...well...you be the judge :)