Sunday morning we were informed that we had used 50Gbytes of data on our cell plan, and that our data rate would be slowed down. We have been able to be on zoom calls, but other internet sites (banks and credit cards) are running slow.
Steve and Lexie started the morning with a two mile hike at the Spruce Creek Reserve. The hike started along the water but then went into a pine forest with a pine needle forest bed.
I attended Mass at “Catholic Church of the Epiphany”. This church was full of people! Sad to say that my current church, St. Agnes/Our Lady of Fatitma, can’t say the same thing.
In the afternoon a cold front came through with high winds and rain. I did a quick study to find out at what point should I worry about high winds in an RV. That point appears to be 50mph when stationary. But winds greater than 10mph while traveling can cause problems.
Monday Vicki and I left early to go visit St. Augustine. The weather on Monday was cool (high in the 50s) and windy.
Our first stop on the way to St. Augustine was our first National Park this trip: Fort Matanzas. Fort Matanzas guarded a waterway back door to St. Augustine. The ferry to the fort was shut down because the dock had been damaged by Hurricane Milton last fall. But we still listened to the history of the fort on the park grounds and afterwards walked around the nature trail. On the nature trail we learned about live oaks, hammocks, gopher tortoises and other native fauna and flora of the area.
There were some interesting sights in St. Augustine but what I will remember is the horrific traffic. The last two miles into downtown St. Augustine took an hour. Because it was President’s Day, the town was overrun with tourists! Yes, I know I am one of the tourists. But I didn’t anticipate the crowd and now know better than to be a tourist on a holiday. We took the trolley tour of St. Augustine, which was informative but the hop-on, hop-off aspect was sketchy. Very few people hopped off, our trolley was always full, and the trolleys were timed longer than the advertised 15 minutes apart.
The trolley tour started at a museum that talked about the Spanish treasure fleets, pirates and privateers. It also talked about the hotel and railroad magnate Flagler, and other parts of Florida’s history. Including the first RV tourists:
We jumped off the trolley near Fort Castillo and grabbed a (late) lunch at The Grilled Cheese Gallery. We both got Mac and Cheese grilled cheese sandwiches which were delicious and filling. And much needed.
Fort Castillo and its history was fascinating. This area was controlled by the Spanish and British during its first few centuries. And the French had an interest in it as well. The Fort was built to protect the Spanish treasure fleet from pirates and privateers. My first thought was that the walls weren’t angled properly to be protected from inside the fort. But our walk-around on the walls of the fort showed that the outside of the walls were exposed to defenders inside the fort.
On the way back to the starting point we passed by the Mission of Nombre de Dios, the oldest Catholic Church in North America.
V- the fort was pretty cool. St. Augustine historic district had a lot of information, buildings, historic sites, restaurants, bars crammed into a tight area. Flagler College was everywhere in this historic district so besides all of the tourists, there was a large student population out and about on President’s day. Glad we went and especially loved the fort. The first Catholic church in North America, Mission of Nombre de Dios – Mission of the Name of God, was founded back in 1565. The drive back was only about an hour so that was a blessing. We were tired by then. The drive from Fort Matanzas along the FL 1 route was very scenic and picturesque – also very distant with a two-lane road making it a very long trip. I started imagining the colonists and soldiers making those treks along sand dunes, the hammock areas (spits of heavily forested land between the Atlantic and the intercoastal rivers and waterways) and probably through a lot of creeks and high tide waters.
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