St. Augustine, Florida

We ran down to St. Augustine this afternoon, to meet up with Richard Adams and his wife, old friends from Naples, Italy.

Fuente de los Canos de San Francisco

The set of masks that decorate this fountain was a gift to the City of St. Augustine by it's sister city in Spain, the City of Aviles, birthplace of Pedro Menendez, who founded St. Augustine in 1565.

Presented in 2005 to the people of St. Augustine by the Mayor of Aviles, the Hon. Santiago Rodriguez Vega, the masks form part of the historic and cultural monuments that occupy the grounds of the Visitor Information Center.

  

And now a little walk around town...

I have fond memories of coming here with my folks when my Dad was stationed at NAS Jacksonville (a few years back).  This is one of the buildings I remember.

Yup, very touristy!

We stopped off here for a little snack, loved this bear made of crushed beer cans!

The original gate to the city.

On to the Castillo de San Marcos.

The Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States.  Located on the shore of Matanzas Bay.  Construction began in 1672, 107 years after the city's founding by Spanish Admiral and conquistador Pedro Menendez de Aviles, when Florida was part of the Spanish Empire. 

Beautiful! 

I told Stu we need one of these for our yard...

In the middle of the picture is the recreation of the wooden wall that would have surrounded the city.

A beautiful day, 72 degrees when we left St. Augustine.  Just an hour up the road, when we got back to the bus, so foggy we couldn't see across the road and 58 degrees!  Come on!!

Winter Trip Update

I know, it's been a really long time.  So here is what we've been up to...

We actually left home headed South early trying to stay ahead of bad weather coming and spent a few days at the Weston Lake Recreation Area just outside of Columbia, South Carolina.

A few days in Bluffton, South Carolina and Christmas with my folks.  

On to Florida, I think this is our favorite campground yet...  Pelican Roost RV Park in Mayport, Florida for two weeks.

The facilities are great as are the views and fellow campers we have met.

They have a clubhouse with lots of gatherings, this was from the New Year's Eve Party.

One of the other campers made these cute little mice, good enough to eat!

A good time was had by all....

Wait a minute, I though this was Florida!!

We spent a couple of days down in Daytona Beach with our friends from back home, Jerry and Jan.

The weather was beautiful and we took full advantage.  We went for a bike ride to the Ponce de Leon Inlet.

The Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse in the background.

Good friends, good times!

Ok, so from Mayport we went about 45 minutes South to the Jacksonville RV park for two weeks, not one of our favorites for sure.  We had some elective work done on the bus (a tune-up) and the guy doing the work got in a little over his head and we ended up staying at the Navy Lodge for a night.  Oh well, at least the view was nice...

Got the bus back the next day and headed back to Mayport for another two weeks.  This time we are in the front row and have a fantastic view!  Ships coming and going all the time.

This is the USS Hue City.

USS Normandy.

We haven't had the best weather, although better than most of the U.S, we came down here for some sunshine!  We have had a few nice days, enough for walks on the beach.

Another part of our great view, kind of hard to make out, but the little black dot to the left of the buoy is a couple of dolphins. 

Yesssss!  finally a good day!

Not just ships sailing by, subs don't have visible numbers anymore, so I'm not sure which one this is.

The clubhouse has a full kitchen we can use.  Yahooo!

Then there is this...  It has the number 4 on it, but I couldn't find it on the Internet anywhere.  It is not flying the American flag, so Stu thinks it is a pre-com ship, one that was just built and has not been turned over to the Navy yet.

The day after a good storm had come through, lots of surfers, if you can believe it! 

Super Bowl Sunday, we had a party at the clubhouse.  I think we were the only Seahawk fans in the place, and as you can imagine, not very popular!  This was our mascot for the night, while he's not a "Seahawk" he did the trick!

The USS New York...departing.