St. Augustine, FL - some random impressions.

[Rich Z]

The weekend before last, Connie and I finally were able to get away for a couple of days and drove the C5Z on down to St. Augustine. Took the back roads through Palatka, so it was a rather pleasant trip, with the weather being just fine for a cruise through north central Florida.

We didn't get into St. Augustine until later in the afternoon on Friday, coming in from the South through the beach area on A1A. Didn't even catch a glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean along the way as all the mega condominiums have basically stolen the view.

We drove through downtown St. Augustine looking for the Hampton Inn I had spotted on the map program before leaving, but darn if I could find it once we were there. The latest version of DeLorme's Street Atlas seems to be strangely deficient in most of the helpful landmarks that it used to show in earlier versions, so it wasn't much help to us trying to find it again on the laptop. I have an older version of the program on the desk top here at home, which PLAINLY showed the Hampton Inn. In any event, after getting turned around and going through a REALLY bad section of town ( I would not advise having your car break down on route 214 (King St.) west of route 1), we finally had to get out onto 95 and go up a few exits to find another Hampton Inn to spend the night. After checking in, we then ran back down into St. Augustine to have dinner at a place called O'Steens, which was recommended by some good folks here. Excellent chow! The shrimp are VERY good and Connie was raving about the veggie side orders she got. She is VERY picky about those, and said that they were about the best she has had anywhere. I'm not much into greens, so I couldn't comment one way or the other.

After a restful night, we got up early on Saturday figuring parking may be a a premium around there. Basically forget about finding a FREE place to park, so don't bother looking too hard. Just get there early, find a paid parking area close to the center of where you want to be, and just do it.

Connie and I mostly just walked. And walked. Up and down the streets, in and out of shops, and then over and yonder on the side streets. There are a LOT of shops there! But to be truthful, most are of the variety that unless you like imported knick-knacks, are such that when you walk into one, you have seen most of what the rest will hold. Not all, of course, but quite a few. Personally, I never could see the purpose behind buying a souvenir that was made in Taiwan unless you actually ARE in Taiwan. But we did wind up buying a really nice set of wind chimes with tubes a good 2.5 inches in diameter. They sound really awesome when the wind catches them. And Connie did find some real nice jewelry at a place called the Silver Feather. They had some real nice stuff there, not the run of the mill imported stuff.

If you get there before 10 am, the place seems mostly deserted, but by the afternoon on a Saturday, you may think you are in Grand Central Station. If you want to cross from one side to the other on a street that is reserved for foot traffic only, you may find that you have to wait for a break in the traffic just to be able to do that without getting trampled to death.

Now there were some oddities to be noted there. People proclaiming to be "homeless" (which I guess means "jobless" as well) seemed to be in abundance at many of the corners. Seems odd that they would be in such a situation when roughly 1 out of 4 shops there had signs on the doors or windows seeking help. I guess either the shops were just pretending to be looking for hired help, or perhaps the "jobless" were holding out for management positions. One of the more well healed "homeless" might have been more effective if he hadn't had his cell phone and digital camera in plain sight right next to his sign.

For some reason we didn't get to go to the normal tourist attractions there. Didn't visit the fort, the old prison, nor the Fountain of Youth (this one I could REALLY have used!). Not sure why, but I guess that gives us a good reason to go back there some day soon. All in all it was a rather pleasant, if not tiring on the feet, day to be spent there. The weather was just beautiful, and for an ex-Maryland resident, there is just something unbeatable about a 72 degree day in mid January.

Since it was getting into late evening when we decided to hit the road to go back on home, we decided to just jump on route 95 to 295 and then west on 10 to head home. Boring...... The smaller roads are a WHOLE lot more interesting and fun, but not in the nighttime hours. But with the shorter Winter month days, it's pretty tough to get everything done during daylight, I guess. Maybe we should have spent another night there, but duty back at home was calling............