#4 Around Town ....

Travel is often considered as a way to relax and renew, and that it does. But you don’t always want to renew your vehicles while traveling! On the trip down here, we had a glitch with the braking device in the car,which actuates when the RV brakes are applied. It was partially applied when itshouldn’t have been! The result was wearing down the car battery and damaging the rear brakes.  So we had to install a new battey and have a brake job done on the rear brakes. 

Fortunately, we knew both of these repairs were on thehorizon even before the mishap on the road.

When traveling in the RV, we always think about having alittle more space, even though we have quite a bit already. Visiting Ripley’sBelieve it or Not museum, we saw a house built from a hollowed out log thatactually made the RV look spacious!

Speaking of houses, this sign at the Dow Museum of HistoricHouses says a lot about the age of St. Augustine.

Kenneth Dow was a collector of all types of artifacts, and fortunately for us, that included the nine homes on the museum grounds thatdate from 1790 to 1910.  This homewas owned by notable resident, Napolean Achille Murat, nephew of NapoleanBonaparte. He emigrated here when Napolean was defeated.

Murat’s wife was a grand niece of George Washington and shebecame the first Princess in the US when she married Murat. Most of the homeswere moved here from other places in town by Mr. Dow. The pic below is apanoramic view of some of them followed by a picture of a crooked house. Mostof the homes were open except for the crooked house below that has been known to givevisitors vertigo.

That same problem, vertigo, helped Anne decide not to walkup the 264 stairs to the lighthouse near our campground. She was concernedabout getting down….

With many rest areas, the climb up the 264 stairs was nottoo bad, though.

Views of the city were great .....

and the boatyard, where craftsmen were building wooden boats was interesting.

During the months of December and January, St. Augustine has a neat light display downtown. These pics turned out better than expected for us.





When we came back to the RV, someone was misbehaving …..

But then again it must get a little boring being in the RV all thetime.

#3 The Crocodilians and the Canon

If you have ever traveled through Florida, you have probably seen one of those places that advertises dangerous, live, man eating alligators! It seems they are just about everywhere along the roadside. Well, St Augustine is keeping up the tradition with the St Augustine Zoological Park.

While admission was a bit pricey, we were not disappointed at all with the park, which boasts examples of every species of crocodilian on the planet - 23 alligator (fresh water) and crocodile (salt water) species in total. Here is a rare albino alligator, first discovered in Louisiana in 1992.



We watched this guy for 10 or 15 minutes and he never moved a muscle - even when the turtle crawled up on his back!

Cold blooded animals who rely on the sun for warmth, the alligators sometimes crowd together for a spot in the sun - like young people on the beach. They think nothing of crawling over one another for a choice spot. The water in the pools comes from a natural hot spring and remains at 74 degrees F year-round.



With lots of teeth, some of these guys looked pretty ferocious.



The park had many long boardwalks and paths for viewing the different types of alligators.



One of the biologists gave a short talk and fed some of the alligators. He told us afterwards that some of the animals can recognize their name after only a few days use, and that they are generally about as smart as a collie dog! They are pretty inactive and may eat only once or twice a month. If they are in good condition, they can go for up to a full year without any food!



Although their eyesight is very poor, they can move faster than any swimmer in the water - even Michael Phelps! For us, this picture explains why you do not want to swim in some of the rivers in Florida:



The largest alligator in the park currently is Maximo, a 15' 3" fellow who weighs in at 1249 pounds!



If you don't count this three foot skull of the prehistoric sarcosuchus, the largest alligator to live in the Alligator Park was 17 foot and 1500+ pound Gomek, who was caught in South America and lived here until 1998.



The stuffed Gomek is shown behind the sarcosuchus above in a feeding pose (we saw a video of the keeper giving him a whole chicken for which he had to perform for the crowd).

In addition to the crocodilians, this well run park had quite a few birds, monkeys, and some snakes that seemed to be chosen for their unique bright colors, an open air rookery and even a Komodo Dragon.

A separate venue at the park was an overhead obstacle course consisting of jungle walkways, ladders, and zip lines that take the adventurous participant over many of the alligator ponds. See the young woman on the walk?

We decided to pass on that. .........

The oldest fort in the US is right here in – you guessed it – St. Augustine. Construction started on the Castillo de San Marcos in 1672. Possession of the fort went from Spain to England to the US as Florida changed hands between these powers, but it never changed hands through a lost battle. In fact, during its colorful history, only 6 soldiers from the fort were killed in battle, three of those from this canon that exploded when the unfortunate fellows fired it.

This aerial view (from the net) gives a good idea of the fort’s overall design.

After 251 years of military use, the fort was declared a National Monument in 1924, and is now administered by the National Park Service. The self guided tour is enhanced with some presentations by rangers. The courtyard is surrounded by  rooms that were used for military stores, soldier’s quarters, a chapel, and other needs. Now there are some artifacts and stories about the fort and its occupants housed in these fortified rooms.

The fort is built with a local material, coquina, which is formed from the sedimentation of shell fragments and limestone and is only available in a few places in the world.

The second level provides sweeping views of the bay and one can easily imagine the Spaniards looking outward for possible attack.

Canon and mortars point towards long gone enemies.

All four corners of the fort have fortified lookout points, or bastions.

Anne liked this guard’s uniform.

You probably know that John needs to check out the flea markets in just about every town we visit, and St Augustine is no different. The market here actually had quite a bit of real junk – you know, not the fake Chinese junk. They even had a pretty good singer, whose voice reminded us both of Jim Croce – remember him?

 

later ……

#2 The Oldest City

There is always something interesting to see while on the road. Sometimes in the campgrounds and sometimes along the road. Here is a camper towing a Fiat 500. Most manual transmission cars, like this one can be towed pretty easily.

Anne was walking the dog one evening a few days ago, and heard a loud crunch as she saw an RV make a tight turn around a 5 foot tall metal post in the campground. Unfortunately, it was a relatively new big rig.

Can’t criticize this guy, though, as our last RV suffered the same fate at a local gas station back home!

Then there was this truck coming right towards us!

Arriving in Atlanta, we visited with a former home town boy - our good friend, Sam, who retired when we did. Sam moved to Altanta to be near family and enjoy the moderate climate. We had to give Sam a lot of credit for finding our rig at McKinney Campground on this pitch black evening. Like many public campgrounds (this is a Corps of Engineers campground), this one is a little off the beaten path.

Idgy was a bit rude when Sam visited.

After 1102 miles and 7 days, we finally arrived at our campground in St. Augustine, Fl.

This park is located on an island across the Matanzas Bay from St. Augustine. Similar to other Florida campgrounds, Anastasia has large campsites that are pretty private. But getting the rig backed into our space was no mean feat. 

The park's four miles of beach and great sunsets are spectacular.

St. Augustine claims its fame from being the oldest continuously occupied city in the continental United States. Dating from a military base founded in 1565 by Admiral Pedro Menendez, the area was first explored in 1513 by Puerto Rican Governor, Juan Ponce de Leon. 

There are many historical attractions in the city, and we decided to start our visit at the site of the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park. This dovetailed nicely with our need for some rejuvenation after the trip down. In addition to the Fountain, this privately managed attraction was the home of a tribe of friendly North American natives, the Timucuan tribe, and the site of the earliest Spanish exploration in 1513. This year the town is celebrating the 500^th year of its discovery.  Many archaeological digs were conducted in this area beginning at the start of the last century and continuing through today. In the 1930’s, the Smithsonian digs discovered the sites of many original buildings of both the Spanish settlers (square outlines below) and the natives (round), who occupied the area up to 4000 years before the Spaniards landed.

 

There are a number of recreated buildings and an Indian village as well as many artifacts, including some of the original water urns and cannon. 

Ponce de Leon  was mainly looking for gold, but when he found this friendly village of tall, robust Timucuans who drank from the many natural springs, he was sure that he had also discovered the legendary Fountain of Youth. Here Anne samples some of the restorative waters from the Fountain of Youth.

We couldn’t resist buying a bottle of water from the fountain, being filled here. 

The settlement location was chosen because it is right on the bay with swamps on one side, and easily defended.  We saw a firing demonstration of this breech loading cannon. Breech loaders were common in the mid 1500’s, but stopped being used 10 years later in favor of muzzle loaders. Not until the Civil War did they come into use again, because of their rapid load and firing capabilities. With 5-6 men servicing the cannon, it could fire three or four 6 pound balls per minute. The cannon shown here is the only one from this period in the US that is still in working condition. Watch with us as it is fired.

Since it was low tide, you could see numerous oysters sticking out of the mud on the swampy side of the settlement. They didn’t look so tasty to us!

 

Some birds and many peacocks were scattered throughout the park.

This interesting graphic in the shipwreck exhibit showed how the Spaniards’ horses were tied and hobbled for ship transport across the ocean.

Toward the end of our visit, Anne was feeling so good, she practically ran to the end of the 600 foot long pier for a view of the bay.

Doesn’t she look trimmer? Those restorative powers of the Fountain must be working ………