From Jacksonville to the Panhandle: The Ultimate North Florida Deep Dive | Drop A Pin Ep. 104
Drop A Pin
Hosts Chaps and Donnie launch a new Hometown Series segment by diving deep into Jacksonville, Florida, exploring its geography, history, food culture, and music
Key takeaways
- Jacksonville is the largest city by land area in the contiguous U.S., bigger than NYC, LA, Chicago, and Houston due to a 1970s county-city consolidation.
- The St. Johns River is one of only two rivers worldwide that flow north, and the region boasts over 1,100 miles of shoreline with minimal hurricane impact due to coastal geography.
Main topics
- Jacksonville geography & history
- North Florida culture & music scene
Notable quotes
"It's the largest city land area in the contiguous... It's 840 square miles. It's bigger than Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and New York City."
Conclusion
The episode successfully blends local pride with educational trivia, o
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:00) Trust no one and accuse everyone in Who's the Bad Guy, the official Barstool Sports social deduction game from the brilliant mind of Nick Teraney. In what's quickly becoming the most popular new party game around, players are secretly assigned unique roles with the good guys trying to expose the bad guys and the bad guys doing everything they can to stay hidden. Each game unfolds under alternating day and night phases with roles like the cool chick, the shy guy, the gambler, el presidente, the mentalist, the planner, the funny guy, and more. Every round is unpredictable, chaotic, and ridiculously fun. Who's the Bad Guy is great for parties, pregames, family gatherings, or groups who just love deception-based games. Game night will never be the same. Shop now on walmart.com. Speaker 5 (0:42) Today's episode of Drop a Pin is going to be about my beloved hometown, Duval, also known as Jacksonville, Florida. And then we're going to close out the show with our good friend Ronnie Doyce, who just came back from Oktoberfest in Munich. We'll hear from him, too. Let's get the show started now. Speaker 3 (0:58) Were you saying that like a Limp Bizkit concert was the first place you got punched in the face? Speaker 5 (1:04) Oh, yeah. That was in New Orleans, though, at Family Value Store in 1998. It was one of the first times they played Break Stuff live. Break your Speaker 3 (1:11) fucking face tonight. And then you literally had your face broken? Yeah. Speaker 5 (1:15) I cried. Yeah. Speaker 3 (1:18) Hey, how are you? Welcome back to Drop a Pin. Today is the first episode of our hometown series that we'll be doing where we'll have people from around the office or just other content creators that come through and have them just talk about their hometown. And what better way to start than with Uncle Chaps Speaker 5 (1:36) talking Speaker 3 (1:36) about Jacksonville and just North Florida in general, an area that I pretty much know nothing about. Speaker 5 (1:43) Yeah, it's an area that I love, and I think that it's an area that if you're from there, you do love it. It's like in your blood. It's infectious. There's something about when I land, like even this trip. I just got back yesterday, and I had such a great time. Like being from Jacksonville, it's the smallest market in the NFL team, even though we have a million people in Jacksonville. It's one of the only 12 cities in the United States with a million people. It's so huge that it doesn't ever feel like that. Like you're in a city with a million people and you can drive for sometimes 15 minutes and only see trees. Like it's a huge sprawling city that has so many different pockets of different types of culture within it. It's just a special place to me. And I got to go back this weekend was so cool because I, the Jacksonville Jaguars reached out. And when I was, so the Jags announced that they were becoming a team. around like 10 o'clock at night on uh in 1993 is when they announced that they were going to be a team i was born in 82 so i was 11 years old at the time and so for the next two years i just looked forward to jacksonville having a team yeah Speaker 3 (2:53) so Speaker 5 (2:54) then when i was 13 years old is when the jags had their very first game and this week they invited me back because jacksonville was in duval county and that's what our fan base That's what the city says is like a rallying cry, the Duval. And they reached out to me and asked me if I would come do the first Duval, which was such a cool experience. And my 13-year-old kid got to watch me do that. In Speaker 3 (3:21) front of the entire Speaker 5 (3:22) stadium. In front of the entire stadium. Like, legitimately, you say Duval, when the L hits, you have to run off because as soon as you hit the L in Duval, they kick. And it's like, that is the kickoff. Speaker 3 (3:34) That's sick. Speaker 5 (3:35) Yeah, so then the whole stadium sang it back, and I took like a little beat to kind of watch and like soak in that moment a little bit. Speaker 3 (3:42) Yeah. Speaker 5 (3:43) Because even though it's like a smaller team, smaller city, it was such like a cool experience for me to be able to do it and just thinking about all the different times I've been to that stadium, watched those games, and then I was there. It was almost like a, not like a you made it, but like you made it type of thing. Speaker 3 (4:01) Yeah, and, like, you've lived all over the place, but raised in Jacksonville, the Jaguars are the only professional sports team Jacksonville has. So, like, they're your team. RIP Speaker 5 (4:11) the Lizard Kings, yeah. Speaker 3 (4:12) Yeah, like, it's without a doubt your number one fandom is for the Jags. Speaker 5 (4:18) Yeah, like, I think you could argue the Florida Gators, too. I think you could make that argument. But when the Jacksonville Jaguars are good. There is no bigger show in the town or in North Florida, really, than that. And they Speaker 3 (4:32) definitely haven't always been good. So this game was also the drop of pinball, Jags versus Pats. It was the worst drop of pinball in history. Depending on who you're asking. For Speaker 5 (4:46) the Speaker 3 (4:46) Patriots. The Patriots have never lost that bad to the Jags in the history of football. Speaker 5 (4:53) No, no, you haven't. And it was, I mean. You guys kicked our asses for years and years and years. I think we only beat Brady maybe once, I think, in the entire time that he was there. Twice. No, yeah, once. We only beat Brady once, and that was in 2018 is when we beat him. And then they beat us in the playoffs that same year, so you got one over on us. But, yeah, so going down there was fantastic. I think some of my favorite things about the area is the food. The food culture in Jacksonville is so great. If you're a seafood fan, a seafood lover, it is amazing. Mayport shrimp is right there. We're like a big supplier of shrimp across the country. It's a huge naval town. It's the second most naval like sailors of anywhere in the country. So that's the reason why I was there. My dad and my stepdad were both 20 year Navy guys. So that's the reason why I was born there. Speaker 3 (5:54) So did you live in the Jacksonville area up until you went to college? Speaker 5 (5:58) No, so I moved around a lot. So I was born in Jacksonville, and then I moved to Italy, and then we moved back to Jacksonville, and then I moved to Maryland, and then we moved back to Jacksonville, and then I moved to Pensacola. And then I went on my own way as an adult. So I left Jacksonville when I was going into ninth grade of high school. Speaker 3 (6:19) And Speaker 5 (6:19) that's where I moved to the Pensacola area, Cantonment. Speaker 3 (6:23) Okay, and Pensacola is still North Florida. It's just on the opposite side. Speaker 5 (6:27) Correct, yeah. And I firmly believe that it's essentially its own state. Anything Orlando and above, or really Ocala and above, it's basically an extension of Alabama, southern Georgia, Louisiana, not Louisiana, but Mississippi. It's more of that culture than the South. Speaker 3 (6:49) Yeah. Like I've, I heard it described as like the largest city in Southern Georgia or something like that. Speaker 5 (6:55) Um, Speaker 3 (6:55) or like the largest coastal Georgian city. It's got that feel a lot more than the rest of Florida. Speaker 2 (7:01) Um, Speaker 3 (7:01) and it also, I mean, yeah, it gets like, it doesn't get a lot of shine in Florida. Like when you think Florida, everyone, everyone talks Miami, Tampa Bay, Palm beach. Um, and like, I, I was talking to my friend while we were watching the game and I was like, I was like, oh, we're going to be talking about Jacksonville on the pot. And he was like, he did not have positive things to say about it, but he knew absolutely nothing about it. Like he was like, yeah, that's landlocked. Right. And I was like, no, absolutely not. It's on a giant river. Not only that, Speaker 5 (7:30) but it's not only not landlocked, but it has the most water ways of any city in the country. Yeah. There's a hundred and there's 1100 miles of river or beach coast. Speaker 3 (7:45) I mean, it looks beautiful on a map. It looks like the perfect place to put a city if you're looking at a map because it's like it's near the coast, but it's very protected from the ocean because it's like, you know, on a river and it looks like a nice, big, wide, deep river. And Speaker 5 (8:03) protected in ways that you wouldn't even think because you think being right there on the Atlantic at the top of Florida, the very north portion of Florida. that it would get decimated by hurricanes. Hurricanes don't come to Jacksonville. Yeah. Because there's a shelf that scoots them up towards the Carolinas when they come in. So you could have, and it's happened sometimes, like there has been one or two major hurricanes that have come across in the last 10 years. But before that, there was nothing. Like you would have these huge Category 4 or 5 hurricanes that come through and look like they're just barreling straight at Jacksonville, and then they would get guided up to the Carolina coast. Speaker 3 (8:41) Okay, yeah. So it's the safest area to live in Florida, for sure. Yeah. I did like one of the knocks I heard on it is that because it is so large, like the entire county is considered the city of Jacksonville. Speaker 5 (8:54) Duval County. Speaker 3 (8:55) Yep. Duval. So isn't there two counties that eventually just like joined forces to form like Jacksonville? Yeah, so like in the Speaker 5 (9:03) 1970s, I think is when that happened. And they consolidated and not really two. counties but like the county and city governments kind of merged Speaker 3 (9:14) okay together Speaker 5 (9:15) but Speaker 3 (9:16) people are saying like it's got such a beautiful location on the river they're like downtown core that it just needs to be built up more but because it's it has such a large large area there's not enough reason to like to really build it up more because you have so much space and Speaker 5 (9:31) i feel like build it up is There is a big downtown. There is like the Jack's Beach area is incredibly nice with super nice hotels, super nice restaurants, some great seafood spots that you can go. You can have five-star seafood or you can have some of my favorite places are like fish shops that they sell you fish or they'll fry it, blacken it, or grill it for you. Like Safe Harbor Seafood is one of my favorite ones. Let's put that. up there, Safe Harbor Seafood Mayport. This is, for me, if I was going to go anywhere in the world for a seafood dinner, it is this place right here. And it looks like there's not a whole lot that you're looking at, you know, like it's not super special. Speaker 3 (10:21) What would you order there? Speaker 5 (10:23) I get the blackened scallops. They'll have like a basket, and they'll do blackened scallops where they cook perfectly. They're not chewy at all. They're amazing. They have alligator bites. They have conch fritters, the harbor fries. They have the fried calamari, fried clam strips. They have a little bit of everything, and all of it is fresh to order there. And the shrimp that you get, if you get the blackened shrimp or the shrimp nachos, it's shrimp typically that was pulled out of the water that day. Speaker 3 (10:55) Okay. Love that. And that's in the Jacksonville Beach area? Speaker 5 (11:00) Yeah. Well, it's in Mayport, which is kind of by Jacksonville Beach. Speaker 3 (11:04) Yeah. But if you're in the downtown core, though, it's not really the most happening place. Like in terms of... foot traffic no Speaker 5 (11:13) downtime it's definitely no definitely not uh but it's Speaker 3 (11:16) it's in a beautiful location so i feel like if they could get that area hopping a little bit more um but i don't know i don't know really not sure how you do that i'm Speaker 5 (11:26) not sure how you do that either but Speaker 3 (11:28) it's because it yeah it looks beautiful it Speaker 5 (11:31) is it's Speaker 3 (11:32) a Speaker 5 (11:32) people shit on it all the time and it's like any if you looked at the worst parts of boston the worst parts of new york the worst parts of chicago And you put that on a map like this is the city. Every city in the world sucks. There's no major city anywhere with a million people in it that you can show every single part of the city and you're like, that shit rocks. Jacksonville is the same exact way. But there's places along the river, like the Riverwalk in Northside, that is absolutely beautiful. More St. Johns County and Ponte Vedra Beach where sawgrass golf courses are. There's so many golf courses. The amount of professional athletes that will go to Jacksonville and live there, decide to live there because you could do everything. You could be out on the water and have great deep sea fishing. If you have a yacht, you can be on world-class golf courses all day long and go to different golf courses every day of the year, essentially, because there's so many. The PGA is headquartered there. There's just so many things that you could do outside. Now, it is stifling-ass hot and humid as shit during the summertime. Coming down from Chicago this year, or this weekend, everybody there was like, man, isn't it nice, dude? They were, like, wearing little quarter zips and shit. I was sweating my fucking cock off. Okay. It was so hot. Like, sweating, just walking, man. It was brutal. Speaker 3 (12:54) What are the winters like there? Speaker 5 (12:56) Amazing. Yeah? Yeah, you'll have... A cold day there will be like 45, a little bit wet, so you have that. But typically a day in the wintertime, it's going to be high in the 50s, low 60s, and it's going to be completely sunny, no clouds in the sky. You can go out. The Atlantic doesn't get too cold, so you can swim in it a majority of the year. Speaker 3 (13:21) Shout out the Gulf Stream. Speaker 5 (13:23) Like for people that swim here in the lake, you have those temperatures most of the year. Like in the Atlantic. Oh, yeah. Speaker 3 (13:30) I would be swimming down there if Speaker 2 (13:31) I Speaker 3 (13:31) was there Speaker 2 (13:32) in the winter. Speaker 3 (13:32) I mean, I was shocked. I was in Savannah, Georgia, not too far away. And it was late October. And like no one was swimming in the water. And like I went for a dip. And I was like, this is actually warmer than the water gets up in Boston. But for them, it's just like, oh, no, the swimming season's over. Speaker 5 (13:48) Yeah. So like it's the winter Atlantic is like the summer Pacific. Speaker 3 (13:54) Now, you can also say this is. Definitely a pro when it comes to Jacksonville. It's like the home of Southern rock. It's where Leonard Skinner's from. My Speaker 5 (14:03) uncle was one of their bodyguards. One Speaker 3 (14:06) of the bodyguards. Your uncle who is a notorious pervert. Pervert, yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's also the home of the Allman Brothers. Yeah. Two incredible bands. And apparently it's the home of Limp Bizkit. Speaker 5 (14:19) Coming from the town of the unknown, Jacksonville is on the map. Speaker 3 (14:23) Yep. Oh, really? Yeah. I forgot about that lyric. And were you saying that like- Take him to the Matthew Bridge. A Speaker 5 (14:31) Limp Speaker 3 (14:31) Bizkit concert was the first place you got punched in the face? Speaker 5 (14:34) Oh, yeah. That was in New Orleans, though. Family Values Tour in 1998. It was one of the first time they played break stuff live. Break your Speaker 3 (14:41) fucking face Speaker 2 (14:42) tonight. And then you literally had your Speaker 5 (14:44) face broken? Yeah. I cried. Yeah. How old were you? I was 98. I was 16, 15. Damn. Yeah. I Speaker 3 (14:52) mean, for some reason, like- Limp Bizkit just like, he looks like he's from Jacksonville. He 100 % Speaker 5 (14:58) does. Speaker 3 (14:58) When I think of Jacksonville, I think of people that look like Limp Bizkit. Speaker 5 (15:01) Yeah. I mean, it was Limp Bizkit, Korn. Korn's from there too. Well, that's where Jonathan Davis met. That's how Fred Durst got his start because Fred Durst was a tattoo artist and he tattooed Jonathan Davis, who's the lead singer of Korn. Holy shit. And so that's how he got his start. But yellow card, red jumpsuit apparatus. Like if you like old screamo, I've Speaker 3 (15:24) heard a yellow card. Um, also limp biscuit. I, when I first heard about him, the reason he was put on the map is that he got the co-sign from method man. I think he, like him and method man had a song together really early on in his career. And I was like, if method man fucks with this guy, then I fuck with him too. Speaker 5 (15:41) Yeah. That was their second album. Okay. That wasn't on $3 bill. Okay. Speaker 3 (15:47) That's huge. I mean, Would you call Limp Bizkit a rapper, too? I mean, him and Kid Rock were kind of like these- First of all, don't Speaker 5 (15:54) you fucking dare. Like, don't put those two together. They're very similar. Absolutely, they're not. They're so similar. They're not. One is talent. One is charisma. Speaker 3 (16:05) They're like the same exact person. No, they are not. One's Speaker 5 (16:08) from Detroit. Speaker 3 (16:08) One's from Jacksonville. No way. No, I mean, Kid Rock obviously turned into country music. Limp Bizkit never gave up the dream of being a- a straight up rock rapper. Um, but no, they, they both blew up around the same time. And they Speaker 5 (16:23) did. Yeah. New metal. Um, but they, I loved, I actually wrecked my car to Limp Bizkit one time. Cause you were just Speaker 3 (16:32) jamming out too hard. Speaker 5 (16:34) Jamming my ass off. Yeah. Oh Speaker 3 (16:36) man. I, I had a soft spot for them. Chocolate starfish in the hot dog flavored water. That like the, the, the, That album name just makes me nauseous. I feel like. Speaker 5 (16:47) Chocolate starfish in the hot dog flavored water. I'm Speaker 3 (16:49) just thinking of like drinking hot dog flavored water. That's not. Speaker 5 (16:52) You know what that's about. Speaker 3 (16:54) You Speaker 2 (16:55) told Speaker 3 (16:56) me. Chocolate Speaker 5 (16:56) starfish is a butthole. Yeah. And hot dog flavored water has come. Speaker 3 (17:03) Now, can we have some girls come in and verify that? I don't think cum tastes like a hot dog flavored water. Google it. Speaker 5 (17:12) What does that album name mean? What does chocolate starfish in a hot dog flavored water mean? Speaker 3 (17:20) Yeah, I mean. Speaker 3 (17:22) Now I'm just going to Google, does cum taste like hot dog favorite word? Speaker 5 (17:28) Uh... Yeah, human anus and hot dog flavored water. Cum. Yep. Speaker 3 (17:35) Cum, but all right. According to Google AI, no, semen does not typically taste like hot dog flavored water. Semen generally has a warm, salty, slightly bitter, or alkaline taste. Speaker 5 (17:45) That's hot dog water. I mean, hot dogs are, they are definitely salty. Speaker 3 (17:54) Um, yeah, yep. I love, I love a salty dog. Speaker 5 (17:58) Um, Speaker 3 (17:59) but yeah, so I mean, my last Limp Bizkit memory was just driving home from an ACDC concert at Soldier Field and, uh, shout out the Beave, Kate's baby daddy. He was in charge of the aux in the Uber and it had been a long night. I'm just like super burnt out from the concert. I just want to get home. And he is blasting break stuff in this Uber, like at the fucking top of the volume and like. I just, I felt like I was going to puke. I was like, dude, just put on like, cause we were just at an ACDC concert. There's just like hard rocking for Speaker 5 (18:29) three hours straight. Speaker 3 (18:31) I just needed some, yeah, I needed some Enya and he's just playing break stuff the entire Uber home. I wanted a KMS, but yeah. But overall Limp Bizkit, he's, he's got some solid tracks. He's Speaker 5 (18:44) doing a concert that maybe we should go in Milwaukee, Metallica with Limp Bizkit opening. Speaker 3 (18:51) That's pretty sweet. Speaker 5 (18:52) I think they're bringing an orchestra, too. Speaker 3 (18:54) Now that I have a young kid at home, I feel like I need to choose my concerts wisely, and I don't think I'm going to use a concert card. That's Speaker 4 (18:59) pretty Speaker 3 (18:59) wise. I'm sorry. No. Metallica, Legendary, Limp Bizkit, but no, I'm not going to use one of my concert cards for that. Just because I'm personally not a huge Metallica fan. I respect their music. I respect Limp Bizkit as a human. Thank you. Not as a Speaker 5 (19:18) musician, though. Speaker 3 (19:20) Not as a musician. He's this guy. Wasn't there that clip recently of the country singer? Female country singer. Carrie Underwood. Carrie Underwood who dressed up as Limp Bizkit and was performing his songs on stage. She Speaker 5 (19:34) sucked at it, too. That Speaker 3 (19:36) was Speaker 5 (19:36) brutal. But people do. I am not naive and I know that people make fun of Jacksonville all the time. So I came with some facts. Speaker 3 (19:46) Yes. And can I say one positive fact about it? Speaker 5 (19:50) I would love for you to, because Speaker 3 (19:51) this was, I was very impressed with it. I was like, this is a very, very cool. Um, they have like the, uh, the largest urban park system in the country and their urban parks cover 80,000 acres. They've got more than 400 public parks, state parks, national park sites, all within