St. Augustine, FL Oct 2015

Monday, October 12, 2015

Saint Augustine

Woke early and Greg contacted Jack Wilson Chevrolet and set an appointment for 10:00.

In the meantime we drove over to the St Augustine lighthouse which opened at 9:00.  We walked around the grounds and to a park across the street while waiting for it to open.  Beautiful morning in the high 60’s.

Entered the lighthouse at 9:00 and, after reading some history, we climbed to the top which is 165 ft., 219 steps….not bad.  There were a couple of local women there doing the stairs as part of their exercise routine. Pretty ironwork on the staircase.  Nice views of the surrounding area.  We didn’t get to the keeper’s house – may come back later if we have time.

Spent from 10:00 till 4:00 at Jack Wilson Chevrolet.  Got all our electronics charged and caught up on emails, Facebook, blog, etc.  We walked to a nearby restaurant, Ichiban Buffet lunch. Back at JWilson, The Astro’s playoff game was on, so we watched 5 innings of that (they blew it in the end L), read, etc.  The Trek needed new oxygen sensors, which apparently is pretty complex and they had to wait for the parts.  Also threw in an oil change while we were at it.  It ran like a charm when we left!

Not a lot of time till things closed, so we went back to town and hiked over to the fort, Castillo de San Marcos.  It is a national site, so our passes once again came in handy!  Listened to ranger give an overview and then did a self-guided tour.  When I mentioned the similarity to El Moro in Puerto Rico, the ranger agreed and said that is their sister fort. 

St Augustine was founded in 1565 and several forts have stood on this site.   The French, Spanish and English all laid claim to the area and fought over it.  For a while, Florida (divided into east and west) was actually the 14^th and 15^th colonies of Great Britain and they did not join the Revolutionary War.  The existing fort was built by the Spanish in 1672  from coquina, a rock formed mostly from shells,

then modified by the English before falling under the US flag.  During the Civil War it was first Floridian (when Florida was briefly an independent nation), then Confederate, and finally Union, but it was handed over without battles.  It was used as a prison for Indians during Florida’s turbulent Indian wars and again during the Spanish-American war in 1898.

We left when it closed at 5:30, walked the 3-4 blocks back to our parking spot and then headed south.  We passed by Michael, who was practicing walking on a strap between palm trees that was about 1-2 inches wide.

We took A-1A south, looking for a boondock spot and found one at Moses Creek Conservation Area, in the parking lot at a trailhead. Greg tried to exercise outside but the mosquitos kept us in.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Fort Matanzas

We drove over to Fort Matanzas National Monument early in the morning.  Another gorgeous day with 59 degrees at 7:30.   The  Monument Visitors Center didn’t open till 9:00, so we parked across the street at a lovely beach and walked.

Instead of bringing them home, I took a picture

Came back to the Trek and made some breakfast tacos before heading over to the Visitor’s Center.  Fort Matanzas is a small fort – a watchtower with a couple of canons – on Rattlesnake Island.  The park service runs a small ferry there so we got tickets and watched a short film till it was time to board.  We (two rangers and about 20 visitors) made the short ride and as we docked one of them, Grant, gave us a brief history.

There were only a few rooms, as the fort was manned by 7 soldiers at a time and the staff rotated every month.  It was built in 1742 to control “the back door” to St. Augustine.  It was never fired on, but did fire warning shots in several instances.

We climbed a wooden ladder to the top, from which you could see 8 miles.  Lots of birds – osprey, great blue herons, egrets, etc. in the area.

We noticed a sign outside the Visitor’s Center about gopher tortoises and Greg asked the ranger about them.  He told us of a trail over by the dunes where there were quite a few burrows.  We drove over there and walked a boardwalk through the dunes – lots of burrows visible, but no tortoises. 

Burrow a little right of center, below mid-photo

We stopped to watch a couple of very large spiders and while we were standing there (the boardwalk is a few feet above the dunes), a huge brownish snake (looked huge to me – 5’ or so)whipped through the brush –he was incredibly fast!  I took a quick picture but only got part of it and it looks like part of the foliage.  Then we saw some sort of rodent and assumed that the snake had been making a move on it – but missed.

This is as far south as we are going, so we turned back northward, by St. Augustine and onward through heavy traffic to Jacksonville, where we stopped at another LA Fitness for a workout and nice hot shower.

We headed further north with Jekyll Island in our sites.  Stopped at the Georgia border for a map and realized that most things would be closing when we arrived at Jekyll Island, so we decided to look for a boondock spot and head there in the morning.  Beth had sketchy directions for a boondock spot near Fernandina Beach so we headed that way, but had no luck finding it L.  Went through Amelia Island – wow – gorgeous homes, country clubs, etc.  and ended up backtracking to a Walmart in Yulee, FL.    Salads and meatball sandwich for dinner.  Tomorrow, Jekyll Island and on to Savannah.