Girls Weekend 2016, St. Augustine, Florida

St Augustine Lighthouse          

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Yes, that is a picture of the St. Augustine Lighthouse above.  Yes, you can go into it and climb the 219 steps to the top for what I am sure is a stunning view of the area.  No, we did not choose to do this. Are you kidding?  There is a time when we would have readily done this, but our knees and ankles have aged a bit since we began our annual adventures and some things we just have to let go....

Anyway,  we awoke this morning to the alarm at 7:30am, a bit of a challenge since we managed to stay up until 3 am the night before journaling away.  After breakfast we were off for the days' adventures which centered around an EcoTour of the inter coastal water that is one of the bodies of water that surrounds Saint Augustine.  This tour, which doesn't seem to be very popular with tourists, was recommended to us by some of the locals working at one of the trolley stops.  Again we were blessed with stunning weather for the day.  We arrived at the city marina just in the nick of time to board our boat.  There was only one other couple on the tour with.  A lovely couple who were from Georgia and had wonderful southern accents.

Our tour guide, Joyce

Our tour guide was Joyce, who looked as if she lived outdoors and proved to be very knowledgeable about the waterways and the animal life that inhabits both the water and the air in this area.

Once out upon the open water, we were able to see that the Bridge of Lions was open to allow some taller vessels to pass into the bay.

The Bridge of Lions

Apparently this happens about once every hour throughout the day and can cause quite a traffic jam in town.  We were happy to be on the water where it didn't affect us at all.  Joyce then turned the boat inland and took us to an marshy inlet that is actually a river.  Here she pointed out many a group of brown pelicans, a white egret and a bed of oysters.

Brown Pelicans

As she was talking about the oysters and the various kinds of oyster lovers, I was scanning the water for signs of bottle nose dolphins who live in these waters.  It wasn't long before I spotted one.  While the oysters were somewhat interesting, the dolphin proved to be far more so and we were all fascinated watching the water to see where it would surface next.  Joyce explained to us that while most dolphins to live and travel in groups, this is not necessarily the case for these bottle nose dolphins and this one seemed to be traveling solo.  While we were watching the dolphin, Joyce spotted a young eagle flying high above us.  She explained to us how to tell the difference between an eagle and other birds of prey that can often be spotted above bodies of water.  Eagles' wings, she explained are flat, no notches in the bottoms like an osprey has.  She also told us that when an eagle is in flight, its' wings lie flat, not arched up toward the sky, like many other birds.  I was glad to learn this.  I had often wondered how people could tell the difference when a bird was high overhead where it was impossible to see the colors and markings.

We left the small inlet and went a bit further inland under a higher bridge where she pointed out a type of sponge that lives right at the waterline on the concrete pilings of the bridge.   These small sponges are orange and I would have thought it was just some kind of rust had she not pointed this out.

Orange sponges

We then turned around and headed back the other direction, towards the inlet where we first spotted the solo dolphin, because Joyce had caught sight of a pair of dolphins, a mother and her youngster.  Pretty soon we all caught sight of these two as well as the first dolphin we had seen.  After watching them a while, Joyce pointed out a young osprey that was sitting atop one of the signs posted for boaters and she brought the boat closer so that we could get a good look.

One legged osprey

I took several pictures of the osprey and when I zoomed in on one of them, I could see that this young osprey was missing the lower part of one of its' legs.  Joyce had just finished describing to us how osprey caught and carried fish with their claws, so I couldn't help but wonder how this one managed with just one claw.  Joyce pointed out how well-nourished this bird appeared so we all came to the conclusion that it seemed to have figured out how to survive with that one foot/claw just fine.  Mother Nature is truly amazing.WE then headed out of the inlet, under the draw bridge and Joyce pointed out where the waterway empties out into the Atlantic ocean.  While headed toward the ocean, we could see much of the damage that Hurricane Matthew caused to many of the boat docks on Anasataia Island.  There were even some boats that were still stranded up on land.  While there was certainly a lot of evidence of the hurricane throughout the town, all in all it was amazing to see how much recovery and clean up had already taken place in the two weeks since the hurricane hit this area.

She took us close to the fort that was constructed hundreds of years ago of coquina to defend the city.  Coquina was the only rock available in the area when the fort was constructed and had never been used before, so the Spanish were unsure how well it would hold up when attacked so they built the walls 12 feet thick.  Turns out this material which consists of millions of shells of dead sea creatures that has been compressed over the years into a form of rock is quite resilient and with all of the little air pockets in it just absorbed the impact of cannon balls launched at it and the fort never fell in all the years that it served to defend St. Augustine against attack.

Saint Augustine Fort

We returned to the marina, very happy that we had decided to take this tour and would recommend it to anyone visiting St. Augustine.  We then took a walk through town and ended up in a shop called Earthbound that we had walked by the previous evening and thought looked interesting.  Well, we ended up spending a couple of hours there and made several purchases, including some essential oils that Kathi bought for Ridley, some masks that I bought for Megan (they were on sale for $1 each, how could I resist!), as well as some cool clothes.

After shopping, we both realized that our late night of journaling had caught up with us and we were both pretty tired, so we decided to go back to the condo for a little bit to catch a quick nap so that we would be refreshed for our visit with our new friends, Julian and Shelley, whom we had met at Mi Casa Cafe and who had invited us to their home.

We napped, then went back into town to Julian and Shelley's beautiful home on Water Street.  As one might suspect from the name of the street, their house had definitely suffered some damage from the hurricane and they were still in the process of recovering, restoring and replacing things that were damaged.

Debris pile from hurricane damage awaiting pick up

Their boat dock was completely destroyed and when they returned to their home from Orlando, where they went upon the mandatory evacuation order, they found that their basement was full of water.  Their air conditioning units were still not working and not all of their electricity was working, either.  Nevertheless, they were gracious enough to invite us to their home, which is quite beautiful and has stunning views of the water.  They bought the home from artist who had added many unique and whimsical touches to the home, including mosaics and painted furniture.

The amazing fireplace in Shelley and Julian's home

We swapped stories of travels and raising teenagers as well as stories of the hurricane and what that was like for them.  It was a very enjoyable evening and Kathi and I were very glad that we had taken them up on the offer they had extended for us to come and visit with them.

We left there around 8:30 or so and had intentions of staying up and journaling through this last full day of our trip, after Kathi's cooked up more delicicious hamburger and onions for us for dinner, but after eating we were both starting to nod off, so we decided that we get a good nights' sleep, so we could get up early in the morning to pack and journal.

Oh, and Kathi's Amazon package?  She had received a text message from Amazon saying it had been delivered, but upon calling the front desk, she was told that no package had been delivered, so the saga continues.  Where in the world is Kathi's package?

Girls Weekend 2016, St. Augustine, Florida

St George Street

Saturday, October 22, 2016   Another glorious morning in St. Augustine, Florida.  We were awakened a bit earlier that expected this morning by the 6 am alarm that Kathi inadvertently set last night while placing her iphone on the charger/clock radio last night.  Once she turned it off, we both got up to use the bathroom, but deemed it too early to start our day and both climbed back into bed and went back to sleep for a couple of hours.  When 8am rolled around we were both ready to start the day.  These days, Girls Weekend morning usually start with a cup of coffee and some time on the computer.  Catching up on emails and social media and the like.  For me, this also includes catching up on all of my many word games, Lexulous, Words With Friends and WordChums.  On this particular morning Kathi was searching on line for an adapter that would allow us to connect an HDMI cable to her computer.  She was so involved with this search that she totally missed out on my breakfast preparations and was convinced, when we finally left the room that I had not had any breakfast, while in fact, I had cooked and eaten fried eggs and had English muffins and yogurt.  Man, can that woman get focused!!! Then while I showered, Kathi wrote up our journal/blog entries for our first day.  We try to keep up with our journaling daily because, otherwise, we seem to forget much of what we have done! Our first plan for the day was to visit The Fountain of Youth once in town, then do some shopping in the amazing and unique shops on St. George street then find our way to the starting point for our Ghosts and Graveyards tour scheduled to start at 8:20pm.  Then we talked about driving into Jacksonville to visit the Free People store for some shopping as well as the Best Buy store to buy the HDMI cable.  Then Kathi did some investigating and found the the HDMI cable was significantly less expensive on Amazon and Jacksonville was ruled out.  Kathi then showered and got ready and by the time that we got into town we realized that we really didn't have time to visit the Fountain of Youth after all, so we skipped that, boarded the trolley and made our way to Stop #5, St. George Street. While walking down St. George we could hear music coming from different venues along the way, reminiscent of New Orleans, and found ourselves drawn into a charming place called Colonial Square from which came some amazing guitar riffs. This place had a little stage set up at one end with benches for seating set up in front of the stage and under a big tree that had lanterns and lights strung up in its branches.  The performer was Dewey Via, who played some amazing guitar and had a voice like Wolfman Jack.  He smoked and drank and entertained the crowd.  We discovered that he was going to be playing later in the evening at a different venue and we decided that we would try and seek him out there after we did some shopping.  We continued along St. George street wandering in and out of various shops, noting many people dressed like pirates as we walked along, but, somehow, not thinking that this was strange at all.  At one point we wandered into a nice little clothing store called Shopaholics Plus, where we spent the next 2 hours trying on and ultimately buying some great tops.  Kathi has often commented on how we seem to buy some our favorite clothing items while on Girls Weekend and this trip seems to be no exception!!

Dewey Via

  We walked to the end of St. George street then made our back toward our trolley stop on Spanish Street, that runs parallel to St. George in search of a place to catch a quick bite before our ghost tour.  Finding nowhere to eat on Spanish street, but many charming homes, we cut back across to St George and eventually into Mi Casa Cafe, where our musician, Dewey Via, was now playing.  Kathi dutifully ate her apple, while I ordered up a bowl full of red beans and rice and a Stella and we sat down at a table to listen to Dewey.  Initially we were sharing a table with a couple who, apparently meet up in St. Augustine for date night, since they live in different nearby towns.  They left after a couple of songs and we were then joined by two couples, Lisa and Frank and Julian and Shelley, all locals who shared some stories with us after we shared the "Girls Weekend" story with them.  When it was time for us to leave for our ghost tour, I shared the address to this blog with Shelley and she graciously invited us to visit with them at their waterfront home sometime before we leave.  We will likely take them up on that offer!  While sitting in the cafe listening to music several men in bras came through collecting money for breast cancer research.  We, of course, had to tuck a couple of bucks.  Once we left the cafe, we came upon a group of zombies and ghouls dancing in the middle of the street.  I love this place.

Hugenot Cemetery

  We boarded the bus for the "doomed" Ghosts and Graveyards tour and were entertained with stories and even a few dramas acted out over the next hour and a half.  The tour includes a stop at the Tolomato cemetery, which is the cemetery located within the city limits of St. Augustine and is where the city's Catholic residents are buried.  I took a picture or two here, and while I didn't capture any images of apparitions, I did get a number of "orbs" in one shot.  Orbs are thought by many to represent spirits.  I'm not so sure that I buy into that idea, but if that is the true, then I have a picture with quite a few spirits making their presence known.

Orbs in Tolomato Cemetery

 The tour ended and the city jail, which is a beautiful building on the outside (Henry Flagler wanted no eyesores in his town), it is unmistakably a jail on the inside and at night, in the dark, is pretty creepy even though it is kept in pristine condition. This part of the tour includes some wonderful storytelling by an actor clothed in jail stripes who claims to be the ghost of a prisoner who had been hung on the gallows in back of the jail earlier that day.  It was delightful.  

The gallows at the Old City Jail

  Once the tour was over, we walked the couple of blocks to where our car was parked and headed back to the condo and a good night's sleep, so that we could be refreshed for the next days' adventures.