Tubing @ Ichetucknee Springs State Park

James Garrett

Well, I finally got my old car working again…for those of you that don’t know, I recently bought a 2009 Caliber because my old 2003 Stratus had some issues.  The most pressing one (and really the only one I need to fix before the sale), was that the drivers side rear hub assembly needed replacing, as the bearings were completely shot.  Ryan Hennessy came over and helped me with this on Friday night, so after Whitney got off work Sunday, we headed to my parents place to take the car up there so they could help me sell it.

After we woke up Sunday, Whitney, my mom, and I headed to the Ichetuknee River to go tubing.  It was a really hot day, which is always good, because I didn’t freeze while going down the river.   I bought a family state park pass for $86, which was good, because as of July 1st, they’re going up to $125+.  Tubes are still around $5-$8 to rent from roadside vendors, so it’s still a really good deal for a weekend trip!

Washington DC Trip – Day 2

James Garrett

Today we woke up a bit behind schedule and rushed to the airport.  We caught the Amtrack into Washington DC, which was a short trip, pretty cheap ($18) and surprisingly comfortable.  That took us to Union Station, where we purchased a rail pass, and would use the subway for transportation the rest of the day.

Our first stop was the National Zoo (link).  We were in a hurry to see quite a bit, and we could go to zoos in FL, so we didn’t spend much time time there, just went as quickly as possible to the animals that we wanted to see.  One thing was for sure, the zoo is a lot easier to walk through in Florida, where there aren’t hills all over the place!

The next stop was the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (link).  We were too late in the day to see the permanent exhibit, as all of the tickets had been given out, so we walked around the temporary exhibits.  It was interesting to me seeing how the photography differs depending on the source (Nazi or Anti-Nazi), and what message they were trying to convey.

After that, we went to the Smithstonian Museum of Natural History (link).

Our final place we had to get to other than the memorials (which are open at night) was Arlington (link).  We stayed to watch a complete changing of the guard ceremony, which I shot several photos of, and Whitney recorded a video of, which I’ll post if I can find a wordpress plugin for video.

After Arlington closed, we headed back to the monuments and took a few pictures, then headed home and ordered Dominoes before going to bed.

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Washington DC Trip – Day 1

James Garrett

Today we had to be up early to get to the airport, and after searching for the remote parking lot, we finally parked and caught the shuttle to the airport.  We boarded our flight at 9am which would take us to Raleigh, NC for a transfer, and then off to Baltimore airport.

Once we got to Raleigh, I overheard something about a delayed flight over the loudspeaker, so Whitney and I walked over to ask what that was about.  Southwest offered us $400.20 to stay for 2 hours and take the next flight into Baltimore, because they had overbooked our flight.  Since we really had no plans for the night other than going to dinner, and we knew we could use the travel voucher for a trip later this year, we agreed.

Once we got to the airport, we caught the courtesy shuttle to our hotel (link) and took a quick nap.  Then we took the courtesy shuttle back to the airport, and rode the Light Rail into the harbor (link).  We ate outdoors as the weather was awesome.

On the way back suddenly we saw about 50 cops chasing two guys…not quite sure what was going on there.  Then we saw a helicopter go up, and then a large portion of the roads were blocked off.  I looked in the Baltimore newspaper and couldn’t find anything about this, I guess this isn’t “news” for Baltimore lol…

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St Augustine – Valentine’s day

James Garrett

Well Whitney and I decided to go to St. Augustine for Valentine’s Day.  We went to the Castillo De San Marcos National Park ( link ) to start the day.  We got to witness the demonstrations for firing the old Muskets.  After that, we went and walked around downtown St. Augustine to kill some time while waiting for the canon firing demonstration time.  During that time we had lunch at Scarlett O’Hara’s ( link ) which was good food and reasonably priced.  Whitney likes seeing the architecture of old churches, so we stopped by one of them before heading back to the fort for the canon firing.  The canon firing was neat,  and I got a few images.  Since the rain was coming, we had to do something indoors, so we decided to go tour the Old Jail ( link ).  The tour guides there are AWESOME and work very hard to keep you entertained, we both had a blast. After that, we did a seafood dinner near one of the inlets overlooking the water which was really tasty and had a great view, although we had to eat inside due to rain :-/.

Little River – Full Cave Class – Shortcut & Mud Tunnels to the Florida Room

James Garrett

Breathing Gas– 32% Travel / 100% Deco
Max Depth– 101ft
Avg Depth– 90ft
Visibility– 75ft+
Water Temp– 72F
Deco Schedule:

Notes:
Third dive of full cave class.  To avoid giving Rich’s class away, I wont go into much detail here.  I placed all the jump spools in, and lead this dive.  I did have a real light failure, and the superbowl was later that night, so we postponed finishing the class until the next weekend.  I hate this cave, and it must hate me back…this was my worst dive in a long time, and it happened during class 🙁

Little River - Dive 3 of Full Cave

Ginnie Springs – Full Cave Class – Expressway Circuit

James Garrett

Breathing Gas– 32% Travel / 100% Deco
Max Depth– 97ft
Avg Depth– 85ft
Visibility– 150ft+
Water Temp– 72F
Deco Schedule:

Notes:
Second dive of full cave class.  To avoid giving Rich’s class away, I wont go into much detail here.  I placed all the jump spools in, and lead this dive.

Expressway Tunnel Full Cave Class Dive 2