Panama Beach City Pirate Festival, Oct 10

Saturday, October 10
Arrggh! Matey!

69 degrees when we awoke this morning about 7 AM.  We headed east on Hwy 20, which wound through a nice slice of rural Florida.  Quite the contrast from the shore road 30 miles or so south!

 A mix of logging and agriculture, nice homes and trailer parks and all in between.  Beth spotted a small boat launch area surrounded by trees, beside a river (just east of the town of Bruce).  So we turned around to park there and have breakfast.  There were a few boat trailers but the boats were already on the water so we had the place to ourselves.

Continued on to Panama City Beach, where we had read about a Pirates of the High Seas Festival.
Greg drove into town and was met with road closure.  We spoke to a policeman directing traffic and learned that there was going to be a parade shortly, and the other festivities would be at Pier Park a little further down the road.  So we parked at a closed Oyster Bar and watched the parade which was a Shriners Parade - or, as I think it should be called,  Big Boys with Toys Showing Off.

We drove down the Pier Park, which turned out to be a HUGE shopping area with hundreds of stores, restaurants, amusement rides, movie theaters, etc.  We walked quite a bit and checked out some of the unfamiliar stores.

 Talked with a policeman who had security detail and he explained some of the things going on.  He told us where the staging area for the BIG parade would be and we wondered over there, took a few photos and talked to some people setting up the floats. Some of the floats are used in other parades - notably Mardi Gras and Christmas.

This one featured Jack the Jester, who has several outfits to fit the theme.

 Back to Trek for lunch, then we wondered down to the pier where a "pirate invasion" was to take place.  The pirates must have chickened out, because after some canon fire and saber waving, they left.

Lots of interesting characters gathering!

After watching a pirate costume contest, we had some time to fill before the parade, so went to Dave and Busters where we had lemonade and a snack and watched their wall of TV's showing sports. Did I mention they were air-conditioned while it was sunny and 90 outside? There were some vocal fans for the Tennessee vs Georgia game.

Since we had fortuitously parked near the beginning of the parade route, we went back to the Trek and Greg set up our chairs nearby.  We had fun watching folks get into character as they set off - probably 30-40 floats.  We got quite a lot of beads too, which now decorate our rearview mirror :).

And as soon as the last one got in line, we hightailed it out of the parking area and headed back to our breakfast spot to boondock.  Got there near dusk, had a few snacks and settled in.  Good nights' rest.

Sunday, October 11
Off to St. Augustine

It is a L-O-N-G way across the top of Florida!  So after cleaning up a bit, we headed out, heading north to I-10 again and then east toward Jacksonville.  We listened to some music and began a book on CD - the newest book by the author of The Kite Runner.  Stopped at a McDonald's for a breakfast sandwich and Greg's coffee.

After a few hundred miles, we saw a sign for Olustee Battlefield and decided to check it out and stretch our legs a bit.  Turns out that it was the site of a Civil War battle, the largest of the few in Florida, and was won by the Confederates who turned back the Union forces intent on blocking supplies going to the Confederate troops and thereby, according to the signage, preventing a Sherman-like invasion of Florida.  Still, nearly 3,000 men died.

We turned south shortly before reaching the city of Jacksonville and stopped at an LA Fitness in the suburbs there (we are members in TX).  Had a good workout and luxuriated in long, hot showers before getting back on the road to St. Augustine.

We headed for the Visitor's Center, arriving just at 5:00 when most things were closing :).  They had great free parking for rv'ers, only a few blocks from the historic part of the city and St. George Street.  We expected historical buildings and there were a few, but it is mostly shops, restaurants, bars and more shops. Cloud cover has kept the temps in the 70s today but oh! that humidity!

   We did pass the oldest schoolhouse in the US, and the tiny but beautifully frescoed St, Photios Greek Orthodox National Shrine, where we learned about the many Greek and other Mediterranean people who were recruited to come to this area in the 1760's.

We walked along the harbor and saw the drawbridge open for a tall-masted sailboat.  Walked around the Castillo de San Marcos which we will revisit tomorrow.  It looks much like the Forts that we saw in Puerto Rico.

Speaking of Greeks, there was a Greek Festival going on adjacent to where we parked, and while we didn't pony up the $ to go in, we did speak to a young man, Jeremy,  who lived across the street and was renting parking spaces around his house to festival goers.  Greg asked if we could park there overnight and he decided we could for $10.  It is a large older house with a big parking area surrounded by trees and we parked near the back of the property, away from the street noise.

We had a light dinner and talked about plans for tomorrow.  Unfortunately, the check engine light has come back on and there is something not right, so tomorrow we will try to get in to a Chevy dealer to get it checked out.  We had a major tune-up not long ago, so hope they can figure out what's going on!