Sunday 16 of June – Beautiful Sunny Day. We got up and went down to the Waffle House for breakfast; we had never tried a Waffle House before so thought we would, it was just okay. Headed back to our site to pack up and we were on the road by 9:50. We just spotted a car with an Ontario license plate; so exciting! our first Ontario car. We arrived at Stagecoach RV, which was 7 miles outside of St. Augustine, Florida ,about 1:30. Really nice park and really nice sites. We had site 25 and we were across from an empty field where people were flying little planes. Strange as this may sound, they also had the most beautiful bathrooms I’ve ever seen in a campground, or in most people’s homes for that matter. They were all redone and clean and big with shelves and hooks, wonderful place.
After my excitement at the showers we decided to drive to Old Town Trolley. We purchased three days of the trolley, three museums at Old Town and a boat cruise at the alligator farm for $170 total. We took the 1 ½ hours trolley ride all through St. Augustine. It’s a beautiful little town right on the water.
We got back and got our truck and drove back into town to Rose Dog Brewery.
Monday 17 June – sunny and a little overcast. We got up and drove the Alligator Farm arriving about 930. We stayed until 1 o’clock. They have 24 different types of alligators and lots of them. But the birds! Wow. Thousands of them, all kinds, all sizes and lots of nests. These birds are not caged in or held here, they are free to go wherever they want. Unbelievable. Clint saw an alligator catch a bird; I only heard the big splash. We took hundreds and hundreds of photos. I only had my 200 lens with me, who knew? Should’ve brought my big lens.
When we were done, we went back to the trolley place and took the trolley down to the Fort which is just by the water near the town. The Fort is called Castille de San Marcos. The fort was free because we had our Parks Pass! Normally $15 each. We walked all through the fort, pretty great location right by the water. The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) was a major European conflict that spilled over into the
Americas. Interesting history of St Augustine.
We left the Fort and walked down to the cruise boat for the 2:45 cruise. Our cruise boat was parked right next to a pirate boat which was pretty cool.
We sat right in the front of our cruise boat on the main deck. The ride took about an hour and a half. We went down past the Bridge of Lions and towards the ocean. We saw a couple of dolphins and lots of pelicans.
When we got back, we walked back to the Fort to catch the Trolley. Traveled back to Trolley Town and we were in time to do the jailhouse tour which took about 40 to 45 minutes. This building was built in 1891 by Henry Flagler and he had it built to look like a hotel. The guy doing the tour was dressed as a prisoner and he was very good. It was a pretty neat building and we saw the gallows, which were out back. Everything else was closed but we heard lots of good stories and heard about Sheriff Joe.
Well it’s the end of the day, so we left there and headed to Bog Brewery. Clint really liked their beer aged in a port barrel, called Port Quad. We also did a flight consisting of three IPAs, the Port Quad and a stout. We decided to stay a little longer so he had a glass of the quad and I had a glass of one of the IPAs. There wasn’t too many people there but it’s a nice place. We sat by the window in chairs made from barrels and watched the streets.
Tuesday 18 June – overcast, started out sunny and then lots of rain, 26 Celsius. We went to the Trolley Visitor Center and parked. We wanted to finish off all the attractions that were here and also what we had paid for in our package. We did the 9 o’clock tour of an old General store. Isaac and Minnie were our guides; all dressed up in period costume and they really played their parts. This is a really neat place with lots of really cool stuff. I enjoyed this store immensely, brought back memories. Then we went into their museum, which was really well done, and it was amazing all the old stuff that they have. I don’t know how they accumulated all these items but it was wonderful to see them.
Afterwards we caught the trolley to the Pirate Museum but a bunch of summer camp kids were there just about to start touring the place. The guy at the counter said probably not a good day or time to do the tour, so we left. We walked around the old town and stopped at a Cuban Café and bakery in the old downtown. We sat outside and I had a Cuban sandwich and Clint had soup and rice and an empanada. Pretty good food. We ended up walking around some more and ended up an old Spanish church. Afterwards we sat at the Ancient City Taproom and had a flight of beer but we didn’t care for any of it.
Then we went to Flagler College, it was $12 each to enter and take the tour. This is a beautiful building inside and outside. We got to see two rooms as well as the dining room with Tiffany glass windows and the ladies sitting room. It was a pretty spectacular place.
We left there to go into another church, called the Memorial Presbyterian. Mr. Flagler and his wife and daughter are buried here. It is pouring down rain now and we stopped a couple of times here and there to get out of the rain.
We ended up walking to the Columbia restaurant for Cuban food. Clint had a Cuban dish consisting of chicken and rice and I had soup with half a Cuban sandwich and we shared a chocolate cake. This restaurant is not as good as the other place we went to. It was packed with people and is very popular. The restaurant itself is quite large, lots of rooms and seating.
Afterwards we walked back to the Fort to catch the trolley back to our truck at Trolley Town. Still raining, so much rain. The water was up over my feet, I don’t think their drainage is good. Then we drove to St. Augustine’s distillery. We waited inside for a bit for the next tour to start. We were soaked! We did a distillery tour with Michael and he made us three drinks, a Moscow Mule and two others. One of the girls made us an old-fashioned drink which did not taste like any old-fashioned I’ve ever had. We didn’t buy anything there. It’s very expensive as well.
We left for San Sebastian winery and we missed the tour but we were in time to do their tastings with the group from the tour ! I bought two bottles of white which were Swedish and I bought some old spices.
After that it was on to Old Coast brewery. It finally stopped raining and we sat outside and shared a taster tray but we didn’t care for their beer either. One IPA and one Brown were okay but overall the rest were rather tasteless. So far Clint liked Bog Brewery’s Port Quad and I liked Rose Dog’s IPAs.
Tomorrow we are off to Tallahasee, Florida!
Trums Travels 