The Oldest (Continually Occupied) City in the US

After a rainy night, we had a leisurely morning (well, Jody and I did, and of course John and Rick were were out working away preparing the boat for our upcoming voyages) and then headed to check out the town of St. Augustine.  While it’s usually crowded, due to the rain, we had the city to ourselves.  We toured Flagler college with it’s Spanish Colonial architecture with ornate, beautiful details and stopped by the Governer’s House museum which had not yet brought all it’s artifacts back that they had removed for last week’s hurricane, so we had to make do with looking at some prints of the original settlements from the 1560’s.  We noticed a lot of very large alligators in the depictions of the area - the natives used to hunt them by listening for the very loud monster noises alligators make and they would take a spear they made from a tree And cram it down the alligators open mouth, flip him, and gut him.  They were so big, they had to use a tree trunk!  We also noticed the irony of a print of the natives kneeling in front of an obelisk that the French had given them.  They kneeled in thanks, offering fruits and abundance from the land.  Little did they know the fate that awaited them from welcoming foreigners :(

We grabbed lunch at Prohibition Kitchen, then headed out to ride the Old Town Trolley for a historic tour of the city.

Midway through the tour the rain resumed pelted us as we wove through the town, but the plastic ponchos they gave us provide so protection and so we persevered!   The history of the town is rich, but the ‘tacky’ Floridian culture overlay takes away from it in a big way.  An example: the oldest tree is a big giant oak tree that is over 600 years old and absolutely gorgeous.  And it’s in the middle of a ‘f***ing’ Howard Johnson’s parking lot with about a 10 foot space around it before asphalt and cars!  So sad as it’s a tree that should have a beautiful park (like they have in Savannah) all for it’s fabulous self.

After wine and cocktails on the boat, we headed out for dinner at the Preserve - a farm to table restaurant in an old restored Victorian eara house then headed home to play Rummikub and get some sleep.