February 28, 2019 - St. Augustine, Florida

This morning we drove to the beach parking area in the park since it was such a nice sunny day. We walked out to the beach and the water was COLD! After a short beach walk we looked at some of the antique cars that were in the park for a rally. We talked to one guy and he said there were about 150 cars participating in the event. We saw several beautiful cars – and to think we spent good money at the Tallahassee museum to see them!After the beach we left and drove to the lighthouse. The current lighthouse was built between 1871 and 1874. It is St. Augustine’s oldest brick structure. There was an interesting timeline outlining historical events and lighthouse events as far back as the 1500s!Our goal for the day was to visit the Fountain of Youth Archeological Site so we headed back across the Lions Bridge into the historic downtown area of St. Augustine.Ponce de Leon greeted us at the entrance to the park. Tobey is hopeful that by drinking some of the spring water from the site Ponce de Leon discovered, he will retain that youthful glow!We watched some of the demonstrations that recreate events from the time of the early explorers and settlers. This was the cannon firing. The park was busy with several school groups today.We even got a picture with Ponce de Leon looking on!

To be honest, one of our favorite things about the park were the peacocks! They are not afraid of people, that’s for sure.This peacock was quite noisy!https://youtu.be/LW_K3wGhP6A

It was also fun to watch these peacocks when they were fanning their feathers. These two videos let you hear the sound the feathers make, too!

https://youtu.be/-Sf43uqVCeg

https://youtu.be/Koo90PkRbyA

I had never seen a white peacock before, but there are several in the park, as well as the beautiful blue/green birds. We spent a few hours at the park before calling it a day. We are spending the night near Orlando before heading to Naples tomorrow.

February 27, 2019 - St. Augustine, Florida

Today we enjoyed a tourist day in St. Augustine. We got tickets for the Old Town Trolley Tours which are a “hop-on, hop-off” tour of St. Augustine. We started at the Old Jail (stop 1) and enjoyed the narrated history of St. Augustine. There was no way we could do all of the stops, but enjoyed the day. We took more pictures than you can imagine and it is difficult to pick a few for this blog!

Let me give you a brief timeline of St. Augustine in relation to U.S. history.

1513 – Ponce de Leon claimed Florida for Spain. In 1565, Pedro Menendez landed here with 700 soldiers and colonists and founded St. Augustine, making it the oldest continually occupied European settlement in North America. In 1672 construction began on the fort, Castillo de San Marco. It took 23 years to complete. In 1702, English troops besieged the Castillo for 50 days, but the fort and citizens who had fled to the fort refused to give up. The British gave up the attack on the fort and burned the rest of the town. This event is why there are no buildings in St. Augustine older than 1702 today. Spain was defeated by England in the Seven Years Wars and Florida was transferred to English control  by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The entire Florida peninsula was returned to Spain in 1783 as part of negotiations ending the American Revolution. Spain had trouble recruiting colonists to resettle in Florida and in 1821, they cede Florida to the United States. Florida becomes the 27th state in 1845.

These are the five flags which have flown over Florida.During the winter of 1883-84, Henry M. Flagler, co-founder of Standard Oil visited the city and was impressed by the charm and possibilities of the area. He had a major impact on the architecture and economy of the city by building the Hotel Ponce de Leon, Hotel Alcazar, the Memorial Church and more.

Flagler College (below) was originally the Hotel Ponce de Leon. Another stop on the tour was the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine. We went inside and marveled at the Spanish-influenced architecture.Across from the Basilica is the Government House which now has a very nice free museum inside. There were artifacts dating back to the 1500s and so many informational signs my head was swimming!We also went by the remaining City Gates.We chuckled at the mini-rental cars. We actually saw people driving around the Old Town area in them!Stop 17 was at the Oldest House in St. Augustine. We took the interesting tour in which the guide related the history of the house, as well as the town. We also stopped at the Castillo de San Marcos which is now part of the National Park System. We spent a couple hours exploring this impressive fort. The fort was built by Spain to protect their vast empire in the Americas. The fortress used a “bastion” system. The star-like outline of the Castillo is formed by diamond shaped projections called bastions, one on each corner of the fort. The design eliminates blind spots for the guards in the sentry boxes at each bastion point. It increased the fort’s firepower by allowing multiple cannons to fire on the same target, creating a crossfire effect. The fort also has only one way in or out through the “Sally Port”. There is a large drawbridge and heavy sliding door.There are over 400,000 blocks of stone in the Castillo, all of it cut and set by hand! The stone is called coquina which is a sedimentary rock.They have lots of cannons, mortars, and howitzers. This map shows why Spain built this fort – the Gulf Stream!We had a nice view of the Lions Bridge from the Castillo – with the drawbridge up!When we walked back from St. George Street which has lots of shops and restaurants, we could see the bridge with the gates down.The oldest wooden schoolhouse in United States in located on St. George Street. We also went into the St. Augustine History Museum and again were overwhelmed with the history of the area! I loved these tiles from 1543.They had a fun picture of an early RV. It looks like the “tiny houses” of today!This was a fun car outside. After a full day visiting the Old Town area of St. Augustine, we headed to Anastasia State Park where we are camping tonight. Tomorrow we plan to visit the Ponce de Leon Fountain of Youth Park. Who knows, maybe we will find the fountain of youth?

February 26, 2019 - Palatka to St. Augustine, Florida

Day 57 Cross Country Bike Trip

It was a cloudy sunrise this morning, but it made for a comfortable ride on Tobey’s LAST DAY of the bike ride!I have been taking a picture of him every morning when he started off, and today he wanted me to take a video, too. What a sweet guy! Here is a link to the video. https://youtu.be/hnf6Yn56Yy4

His route was on the bike trail most of the way to St. Augustine while I was on the highway. We both went by large agricultural areas, both potatoes and cabbages. The potato furrows are really big. Who knew that Hastings is  the potato capital of Florida? Just past Hastings is an unincorporated community called Spuds!It looked like the cabbage were almost ready to pick. The last part of Tobey’s route had him on Hwy.  A1A to the St. Augustine Beach. He is turning into the parking lot! Now out to the water!Wheels in the Atlantic – he did it!Last video:  https://youtu.be/I0TMBtKMb6cToday’s ride was 33.9 miles and he finished before lunch! Total miles ridden on this journey 2938.2!

We spent the afternoon doing some chores before heading to a church affiliated with our home church where we will stay tonight.

Our celebration dinner was at Ned’s Southside Kitchen. Not a fancy place, but they had great food and service. Tobey had the fried shrimp and I had the sesame crusted flounder. Both were delicious! The owner was going around talking to everyone and when Tobey told him we were celebrating the end of his ride, he was amazed. He told all of his staff and then said dessert was on the house! Boston cream cake.

Tomorrow we will be sightseeing around St. Augustine.

The link for today’s ride is https://ridewithgps.com/trips/32004859.

This is a link that will show all of Tobey’s route. https://ridewithgps.com/events/71165-tobey-s-coast-to-coast-ride-2018-2019

On the left side of the map, it shows day by day stop and start points so you can look at each day’s route.

OR you can scroll to the bottom of the day-to-day and there is a box that says “Show all on Map”. If you click that, it will change the map view to show all days traveled so far (but be prepared for a short pause as takes a while for the file to load).