Bruce and Debbie's Travels & Adventures: Oldest City, St. Augustine

October 15 - 21, 2017

Welcome to Florida.

Sunday, October 15: Travel Day. Stopped at the visitors center and decided that we like this Florida thing so much, plus we will be in the Orlando area later which has a lot of toll roads, we might as well buy a SunPass. We are now ready for Florida's toll roads.

It was a really hot day and by the time we reached Stagecoach RV Park and set up we were to tired to do anything. We did eventually take a walk around the RV Park. This is a no frills RV park. You have just what you need. A level space with full hookups.

Got an early start today. Breakfast at Denny's and off to St. Augustine. We spent the morning touring the Castillo de San Marcos. First time we got to use our Old Fart's Pass (otherwise know as the National Park Senior Pass) and it didn't cost us an entrance fee. Started out with a great ranger program. Once we had all that information we were ready to start exploring. This is the oldest masonry fort in the US. The self-guided walking tour took us around the fort into many rooms, each with it's own exhibit. Checked out the visitor's center and a little of the downtown streets.

Gates to the City

The afternoon was spent at the Alligator Farm. This was a well laid out and entertaining zoological park. We saw many kinds of alligators, crocodiles, birds, komodo dragons and a feeding at the main alligator pool.

He was sharing our table when we were taking a break.

Tuesday, October 17: Today was a visit to the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park. The first thing we did was take a big drink from the fountain. (Need all the help we can get.) The water tasted like it came from a hot garden hose and we are still waiting for results. Next we watched a demonstration of canon fire, climbed the tower, toured the buildings and watched the Discovery Globe. Hurricane Irma caused a lot of damage. We were impressed with how much they were able to have opened for us. The chulupa (a 16th century work boat, not a taco) had been floating before Irma. She picked it up and laid it down some distance inland. They told us they were planning on doing some maintenance anyway, now they can do it on land and then put her back in the water.

In the afternoon we visited the St. Augustine Distillery. It was a great tour. After the typical tour of how things are made we had the "Tasting." The first tasting was in a bar setting. They made from scratch a Florida Mule with their vodka, A Tiki with their rum. Then we went into the main store where we bellied up to the bar for Gin and Tonic and Old Fashioned. All were good but expensive, especially when you buy their custom mixers. We bought gin and strong tonic. Super good.

Wednesday, October 18: Bought a Red Train Trolley tour package. Three days of hop on, hop off riding around the city, admittance to the Ripley's Believe It or Not Odditorium, Ghost Train Adventure, mini golf and a book. Plus senior discount. We really road the trolley all around. Had lunch at Meehan's Irish Pub. (Note to self, chips in an Irish pub was french fries.)

Tonight was the ghost tour. This one was so much fun. First of all, the weather was much better. It was so hot and humid in Savannah. This tour includes ghost hunting equipment. I had a dot matrix laser pen to shine at places. The object is to look for disruptions in the pattern of dots. Bruce had a meter that was suppose to detect excess electrical energy. Once on the train we had three stops. At each stop we got off to explore the area. We were encouraged to take a lot of pictures and then later look for any abnormalities.

The first stop was an old Sugar Mill. During the day this is a trolley stop location, but at night is was a place for us to explore. Once we were inside and told about the mill, we were led outside in the back where we could use our devices to ghost hunt. The second stop was the Castillo de San Marcos. It is pretty creepy in the dark. The fort is closed but we could wonder the grounds. Of course the grounds were an old burial ground from hundred's of years ago. The third stop was the jackpot. We got to go into the Ripley's building after hours. Being in a semi dark Ripley's with all that weird stuff was really cool. We were told the mystery/murders that occurred there and again tried to find ghosts. Didn't find any but it sure was fun looking for them.

October 19: Back to St. Augustine. Took the trolley to the Lightner Museum. This was originally the Alcazar Hotel. Didn't know, but they were having a special exhibit called "Dressing Downton," period clothing used in the PBS series. Bruce was not thrilled with looking at clothes, but even he was surprised how neat an exhibit this was.

Afterwards we had lunch in the Cafe Alcazar. The cafe is located in what was the largest indoor swimming pool when this was a hotel. Lunch was very elegant. There was a piano player playing all through dinner.