The worst part about growing up and getting older is that many of our friends have moved away- some to graduate school, some to jobs in other cities. On the other hand, visiting friends is a great excuse for a road trip/mini-break!
Forrest and I spent the weekend in Jacksonville, Florida with his old roomie Jon, his wife Diana, and their sweet puppy Jax. Jon and Diana live in a super cute house in a lovely neighborhood with plenty of free-ranging cats.
That tall red head in our wedding photos is Jon. He and Forrest totally feed off of each other- it can get a little crazy.
We made a few plans for the weekend in advance, but everything got muddled when a big storm rolled through Jacksonville on Saturday morning (it was good- they needed the rain!), so we switched things up. It turned into a fun weekend filled with shrimp tacos, tomato plants, and Jax. Perfect.
Thanks for always welcoming us into your home, Jon and Diana- we had a wonderful time! Come visit Columbia soon!
And now for something completely different! I (Forrest) wanted to add some photos and nonsense from our weekend adventure.
This is Jax (Jackson) and he is awesome. He and Diana are the real reasons we go to Jacksonville, Jon is just one of those side effects of being there.
Jon and Diana took us to this place called Sweet Pete’s that had fantastic confections and chocolates. We made out like bandits with some salted caramels, rosemary dark chocolate, dark chocolate kettle corn, and some chocolate graham cracker things. Only some graham crackers remain at this point, so I guess Jon and Diana know a thing or two about good candy!
Jon was fading fast, but luckily we had coffee on the way to save the day. Coffee fixes just about everything.
See? Even I look better with coffee!
Liz is a master at holding coffee, and also might have a future in hand modeling!
Jon insisted that I take a photo of this “Hot dog stand.” It sort of reminds me of Hemingway’s 6 word short story and raises almost as many questions. Who is Debbie? What happened to her hotdog stand? Is there someone who’s full name is Debbie Hotdog Stand? If so, what was her childhood like? etc.
I’m fairly sure that bringing Liz is the only reason Jon and Diana even let me in their house. Just one of the many reasons I love her.
As is true of most of my friendship with Jon, this trip tended to revolve around food. Either in the form of eating, gathering ingredients, or preparing food. We drove out to Mayport to a fantastic fish market to pick up some beautiful shrimp and triggerfish fillets for the evening meal. Above would be the triggerfish.
Diana did the prep work on the shrimp for our shrimp tacos! They were super delicious.
Ah yes, the perfect ingredients for tacos, fresh cilantro and Doritos. Well, maybe the Doritos were just there to keep the chefs fed and happy until dinner was ready.
And of course, no trip to Jacksonville is complete without Liz trying to take Jax home with us. Better luck next time darling.
Domesticated Artists 