Jacksonville/St. Augustine 
We were in Jacksonville in April, 2003, for a conference on teaching.  Sara got a very nice award
from this national group for her use of technology in her teaching.  I was very proud.  It was cool.


The convention hotel was the Adams Mark.  I don't have too much good to say about it, but it
provided a base camp for some fun expeditions.

We spent an afternoon at the Cummer Art Museum and Gardens.  The museum is a nice small
one;  the gardens in back are beautiful.  We had the place pretty much all to ourselves and had
a lovely, relaxing time.  It's right on the river, so some water views and some great plantings.
 

The Jacksonville Zoo is one of the better ones we have been to.  We got in a nice walk and
enjoyed the way the place is laid out.  I found a nice tie in the gift shop, too.  Worth a visit.
We spent at afternoon at one of the most entertaining and inspiring places I've ever seen:
The World Golf Village and Hall of Fame.  It is located between Jacksonville and St. Augustine,
and is everything those commercials on the Golf Channel say it is.  It is incredibly educational, with
scores of exhibits on history, technology and the evolution of the game.
On those Golf Channel commercials, Gary Player trots across those continents in the big reflecting
pool out from.  We didn't do that, but we got a shot in front of the thing:

This one is sorta dark, but one of the exhibits at the Golf Hall let's you put using the old 19th and early
20th century balls, on a green built to simulate those greens of that time.  Talk about slow putts!  I had
a great time, but didn't make much!

We spent a day in St. Augustine, which is a small town that is more like a theme park, hawking the first house and the first school and the first everything.  We didn't care for most of it, but found a cool, tropical spot called the Lightner Museum.  This place is an old health spa turned museum.  Large and filled with collections of collections.  One of the most memorable of the many museums we have seen.  We'd suggest going to St. A  just for that.  It features what was at the time it was built the largest indoor swimming pool
in the world. Now, in the deep end, is a marvelous little cafe.  We had a great time.
Here's a shot of Sara and me in the courtyard, taken by a kind Japanese tourist
 
Jacksonville/St. Augustine is a great place if you play golf, do water sports, like beaches
or eat seafood.  We do none of these things, so on the whole it was not our sort of spot.  But out of it came two of the all-time jewels of our travels:  The World Golf Hall, and the Lightner Museum.