Saturday November 1: St. Augustine

Once again I am amazed when I look at how long the coast of Florida is - especially when I think about traveling it at a speed of 8 miles an hour :-)

We traveled 42 miles from the mouth of the St. John's River east of Jacksonville to St. Augustine - oldest city in the US.

It was a pleasant enough day right from the beginning as we left Sister's Creek about 10 am. This gave a bit of time for the currents to be going our way instead of being against us the whole trip.




The mud flat right across from the dock was very visible when we got up. There is a red line on the picture to show how high the water is when the tide is all of the way up.






The birds love low tide - lots of stuff to eat hiding in the mud :-)



Regardless, it was an uneventful day with Steve doing much of the driving as I had a 24 bug or something and wanted to just sleep the day away :-(


By Friday morning I was back to normal (well, at least as close to normal as I ever am!) and we headed off on the bikes for the post office.

Goal: return the inverter purchased on ebay that was the wrong one - what  a pain. I'm almost ready to quit buying on ebay ....

Until the next bargain presents itself :-)

St Augustine is the home of Flagler College with it's very uniquely colored buildings that just seem to belong in the south.

It's a very impressive looking campus area. Maybe I should have gone to college here ...

But then I guess I wouldn't have meet Steve so better let well enough alone :-)


Yesterday was of course Halloween. We saw some folks in costumes but truthfully not as many as I would have thought we would see.

The area of all of the shops and restaurants downtown were fairly busy - and of course you know when you're in the south when you see a sign that says "Boo Y'all"


The Bridge of Lions over the Intercoastal was lit up by the setting sun. It was a nice evening for trick 'r treating for sure.

This morning was such a different story! We were intending to leave but 25 mph NW winds were due in with the cold front following so we decided to just stay put.

But off to Winn-Dixie for some shopping. Steve loves the organic section for veggies if he can find one.

It was definitely a day for jeans, sweatshirt and jacket!

And for something indoors to do: a tour of the Whetstone Chocolate factory!

What a good thing to do on a cool day :-)

It was very informative - and of course we learned why the Whetstone chocolates are better than anyone else makes. Bonus on the tour: free samples!

What's not to like about that :-) Steve had already picked out his favorite even before the tour began.



Giant vats of chocolate and perfectly made little shells samplers.

All were good but the dark chocolate was my favorite for sure.












We ended up taking a sample back for friends from Banana Bay that pulled into the same marina last night - Pat and George on Reflections. Small world - once again.

This place even had a "Lucy" scene set up where you could take a picture.

Definitely a fun day.

The best: the T-shirt that I maybe should have bought:






Peter on Deja Vu would think this was very appropriate given my behavior at Lookout Mountain a few years back :-)








And one last success story: Steve's bike kind of bit the dust when we arrived at Winn-Dixie this morning. Seems the rear wheel bearing was shot - since the wheel just wobbled side to side.

The Dockmaster here recommended a place a short walk away. It was a bit pricey at $15 for labor and $20 for part (used rear wheel, new rear brakes) and completed by 4 pm today. Wow - amazing!! Good to go for another who knows how long!!

Tomorrow: off for a short run of 2 1/2 hours to Marineland Marina - one of our favorites. The winds (which really did come blowing in at 25 mph) are to die down in the low teens. Still quite cool but no issues moving on. This was a good stop :-)