After the Miami part of our trip (read here), Alex and I headed to St. Augustine, Florida. I have been hearing about this place for so long. My bestest friend, Kelsey, has named it her favorite place. As the good friend I am, I went without her.
I had no idea what there was to do or see or eat in St. Augustine. Other than it exists on a beach. I was told to go to Castillo de San Marcos. Beyond that, we were continuing the no plan theme indefinitely. The first day, I had a ton of work to get done. Alex was tired. We decided to grab food and drive around just enough to see what there was to do. Very exciting stuff… I was in bed by 9:30.
On the second day, we went to the big, old fort. Castillo de San Marcos is very old and very cool. It started out as a Spanish fort because St. Augustine used to be a Spanish colony. As the land changed hands so did the fort. It was changed and expanded and all sorts of fun stuff. Unfortunately, like most super old, historic buildings, there was no air conditioning. This may come as a surprise, but Florida is super hot. We were dumb and decided to tour during the hottest part of the day. Fortunately, it started to rain. We wandered around the downtown – honestly, I don’t know if it’s the downtown area – or the historic area of St. Augustine. It’s so pretty. There is a college. The dorm is a reworked luxury hotel… It’s not fair. Actually, it is a disservice to those “poor” college students. They will never live somewhere that nice ever again. So ha!
You can’t wander very far from the ocean. As we walked back to the car after bopping around town and being jealous of the privileged college students, we walked along the water. Things kept jumping out of the water. I couldn’t decide if it was a dolphin or fish or shark or what have you. We sat on the wall next to Castillo de San Marcos watching the birds hunt for fish. It turned out big fish were corralling little fish against the walls and rocks for. I saw my first live jelly fish in the wild. It was really interesting to watch.
We were actually supposed to leave after our second full day, but Hurricane Florence did not cooperate. The roads leading back to Jacksonville, North Carolina, where I was flying out of, were closed. I was unable to make my flight the following day. Once that was rescheduled, we extended our stay in St. Augustine’s by a day.
Our last day was a beach day. Before the beach, we stopped at a cute little coffee shop in the historic district. Then, we grabbed some sushi. I have a terrible tendency to eat a lot before going to the beach… Not good for bikini pictures, folks. Don’t do what I do. Alex and I played in the waves. I was hit in the chest by a jumping fish. He taught me -unsuccessfully – how to do a Marine take down thing. I ate some sand practicing. I should just practice my run away tactic. I feel that would have a higher success rate. Anyways… The beach was beautiful. The ocean was green-blue. The water was warm. I got sand in all my naughty bits.
St. Augustine was a really fun addendum to our trip. I would go back in a heartbeat for the architecture alone.
