St. Augustine, Florida

     St.Augustine bills itself as the oldest city in the U.S., but it is perhaps better known as the site where Ponce de Leon landed in search of the Fountain of Youth.  I've been searching for it too, but so far, no luck.  I'm not a real history buff (Art is, but he's not writing this), so I'll just say that our location in what is called the "Old City" is quite interesting and has that colonial feel:  narrow streets, old stone buildings and lots of statues and plazas.  We do plan to take a guided tour, so I'm sure I will have more to say on this later.

     We are docked at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina, which is located right next to the historic Lions Bridge in the downtown (Old City) area.  As you can see in this photo, we run into all kinds of boats--this guy is basically a pontoon boat with a tent on top and he too is doing the Loop, albeit rather slowly (will finish in a few more years, as money and time permit).  We have seen all kinds of watercraft going our way and we have heard from others that we will continue to be amazed at what floats down the "ditch," as the ICW is often called.  I can't wait and promise to keep my camera handy!
     Our first day here, we walked around a bit and then took a tour of the Castillo de San Marcos, an old Spanish fort located on the water which, in its 350-plus years, was never defeated by any attacking force.  It is now part of the National Parks system.
     

Here I am with my new fortress friend--nice guy.

Art is checking out the cannons.  We were told they could shoot 3 miles, but were accurate for only a couple of hundred yards

  

We are looking down into the courtyard from the gun deck in this shot.

     In addition to all the great historical sites, this city has fabulous restaurants.  I'd like to eat at every one of them, but then I would be as big as the boat.  So far our favorites are Harry's (Low Country Shrimp and Grits gets my vote, Art had Jambalaya) and O.C. Whites, which is located in another historic building (built in 1790).  I had flounder and Art got Shrimp Abaco which was to die for.  As you can guess, we have been eating a lot of seafood (almost exclusively when we go out), so I'll be seaworthy even without a boat!

 Last Day in Saint Augustine

      As I mentioned above, we took a guided tour of the city today, but I won't bore you with the details of the names of the all historic buildings we saw and what they have been used for over the past 250 years. (I wish I had gotten a photo of the cute little train we rode around in, though.)  The best part of the tour was a side trip to the St. Augustine Lighthouse.

     We learned from photos in the Lighthouse Welcome Center that the view at the top was fantastic, but that you had to climb 220-plus stairs (the equivalent to a 15 story building).  Whoa--neither Art nor I are exactly athletes, but I decided we must do it anyway and so I shamed Art into making the climb.  And once we were on the way, he had to keep coaxing me along (my knees and lungs were protesting) or I would have jumped out the first window I could find.  One lady told me to breathe slowly on the exhale, but I told her I felt lucky to be breathing at all.  Obviously, we finally made it to the top, but I sure had a few doubts along the way. As you can see from the last photo below, the view wasn't as fantastic as promised -- I thought it looked like we were only a few feet off the ground, but the sense of victory over those damn stairs was enough to keep me happy.  I was also amazed that walking around a catwalk at the top with only a small railing wasn't nearly as scary as it looked from below.  In spite of my whining, I enjoyed every minute in that lighthouse.

This is what our climb looked like from the bottom looking up.

Can you believe I am posting this photo with both of us looking so bad?  But that is as good as it gets when you are out of shape and climb 220-plus stairs going in a circle.