St. Augustine

Castillo de San Marcos

Greetings from St. Augustine.  St. Augustine is the oldest city in the United States, founded in 1565.  We know this because we all learned it in grade school and because everyone here is eager to remind you.  The old fort (Castillo de San Marcos) is the focal point of the old city.  There were nine previous wooden  forts built on the same spot but all nine burned down.  The current stone fort was built in 1696 when apparently Spain finally got the memo, no more wooden forts.  After a 90 minute trolley ride around the city we set out by ourselves to get a closer look of what we viewed as the city’s highlights:  The St. Augustine Cathedral Basilica, Flagler College and of course, Castillo de San Marcos.

Conveniently, we were able to bike from our campsite which is in Anastasia State

Park.  The Park has a beautiful white sand beach that goes for miles.  After searching the beach for any of the speedo boys from Hendricks College and finding none (see earlier post), I decided to go for a swim in the ocean.  The water was cool but fortunately the huge waves allowed me to acclimate to the water very quickly.  I had a blast but the adventure was exhausting.

We discovered a great treasure which was within biking distance from our campground, a Dollar General, a pawn shop and a thrift store – my kind of mall!

We had to leave the park for the weekend as alas, there was “no room for us at the inn”.  We ventured 30 or so miles down the coast to a hotel in Palm Coast for the weekend .  We spent a sunny Saturday at Flagler beach, swimming and strolling the boardwalk, before returning to Anastasia on Sunday.

After re-establishing our camp we made a return biketrip to the old city.  We took a guided tour of Flagler college mostly to see the priceless Tiffany windows in the dining hall and the equally priceless chandeliers.  Flagler College was once a luxury hotel, The Ponce de Leon.  In the gilded age, the Uber rich would pay todays equivalent of $100,000 to stay for the winter.

We found an outdoor aquatic center in St. Augustine and once again did a little lap swimming.

We break camp this friday and plan on heading to Savannah.