Priscilla and I just got back from another wonderful trip to Jacksonville, Florida.  Jacksonville has always been a fun trip because it’s only a meager 5 hours away from Atlanta and it’s got water.  Jacksonville is cut in two by the St. Johns River and is butted up against the Atlantic Ocean.  It is the United States largest city in actually land mass.  It is located in north eastern Florida only  2 hours from Savannah, Georgia and twenty minutes to the South Georgia border.

We were in Florida visiting Priscilla’s sister Ashley, her husband Jay, their 3 year old Kent and they’re new addition, 3 month old Elle.  Ashley and Jay have recently remodeled their home by adding an extra guest room (for us), a full outside patio with a built in grill, and a full on theater with a 105 inch HD Projection TV.  Awesome.  So it was a fun filled trip full of babies, babies and giant TVs.

One of the things that really makes Jacksonville so enticing to me, is the water element.  It seems like every time we visit Jay takes us out on his boat.  Honestly it’s super convienent because he has it docked just two blocks away from his house at his sister’s boat dock.  We usually just take a couple of hours to cruise around Jacksonville past Alltell Stadium, the Maxwell house factory and the Landing. 

The Landing is a downtown square that includes several restaurants and bars and is located right off the St Johns River.  It’s a cool little area that pertains mostly to tourists and business lunch meetings, but is always a fun place to visit in the boat.

Jacksonville is smaller than Atlanta, but not in a bad way.  It actually reminds me a lot of Sacramento, in that it has a river, is smaller in size and is not directly adjacent to the ocean.  It also has an extremely high property value which is also similar to Sacramento. 

All in all, I would definitely move to Jacksonville.  It most likely would be number one on my list if I had a choice on where to move.  But the main reason is that Ashely and Jay are there.  Plus, when P and I are ready to have kids, our kids will be able to have a relationship with their cousins just as I did with mine.  It definitely is something to consider.