The Long Way Home

Our flight left from Orlando to SLC departed on Wednesday afternoon and since it takes a notoriously long time to check in and get through security at the Orlando airport, we wanted to be sure we had plenty of time.  So we started the 6.5-hour drive from Columbia to Orlando Tuesday evening, spending the night in Savannah.  Wednesday morning I decided at the last minute that we should take a detour and drive the kids through this beautiful city, and we stopped on River Street for a few pictures and treats before heading to Florida.  The salt water taffy and pralines did not disappoint.

  

We drove on, and Ben and I were excited that we'd be passing through Jacksonville at lunch time and wanted to take the kids to a cool downtown area called The Landing.  We'd been there a few times during the 16-or-so months we lived there and thought the kids would appreciate the fact that it's a vibrant assortment of restaurants and things right on the St. Johns River.

Well, it was a dreary day and the weather was reflected in what we found in Jacksonville.  The Landing was deserted - nobody in the restaurants, no yachts docked in the river, and no people - except for one nice man who told us the story of The Landing's demise, a combination of hurricane damage to the yacht and an increase in crime, etc.  The Landing is now in the process of being sold and hopefully the area will be revitalized soon.  (Finlay Park all over again!)

We told the man we needed to find a place to have lunch and he recommended a candy store/sandwich shop called Sweet Pete's a few blocks away.  We thanked him and walked a different way back to the car, finding The Times-Union Center on the way.  This is where the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra performs, and I joined them a few times as part of the JSO Chorus.

We found Sweet Pete's and it was the cutest (big) candy shop, with an impressive assortment of handmade and standard candies, both current and nostalgic, and fun whimsical decorations.  There was an area where you could watch candy being made, and a room for birthday parties, and even fun toys and gifts available for purchase.  We didn't have time to explore the whole store but loved what we saw.  Alas, the sandwich shop at Sweet Pete's was closed so we walked a block to a grilled cheese place to finally have some lunch.

The Happy Grilled Cheese was fun - they made big grilled cheese sandwiches with fun additions such as peppers, bacon, or steak, plus interesting cheesy items such as macaroni and cheese and fried mozzarella sticks.  And we couldn't help but take some pics of this funky sculpture when we were walking back to the car.

No more stops after that.  We continued on to the airport and were really glad to have enough time to check in and have yet another unexpectedly long time going through security and eat dinner before getting our on our flight.  We landed a little before 10:00 local time, which was midnight on the east coast.  The kids handled the flight well, but Luke was done by the time we were finding our way back to our car.  All the kids were asleep in the car before we made it home.  Our travel day was approximately 15.5 hours long, but I'm glad we broke it up a little with stops in some of our old haunts.

Another trip home in the books!  We loved it!