After spending time at the “mouse house” and “fort winderless”, we decided to go coastal again, so we fought thru I-4 construction and traffic until we got way east of Orlando and its sprawl. This time the destination was to continue to find warm Florida beaches in Winter again so we headed north on I-95 with our crosshairs on St. Augustine, in general, and Anastasia State Park, in particular. We are hoping to find part of Ponce’s fountain of youth and part endless summer.
Someone else’s crosshairs were on us, mainly another wintery front came barreling into our destination and rendered the large beach front part of the Anastasia State Parks 1,600 acres somewhat unhospitable until our last day. But a little bad weather shouldn’t get anyone down, so here are some snaps on bad weather days and good weather days:
In spite of the weather, we did keep moving and Lisa did Bikram Yoga a couple of times while yours truly practiced guitar in the campervan. We also visited Planet Fitness a couple of times. Unfortunately, none of the workouts could out pace the amount of shrimp and chocolate we ate. We didn’t know it, but our little roadside food book listed around four or five seafood restaurants that specialize in fried shrimp and Datil pepper sauce, or more properly, Minorcan Datil Pepper.
The former is lightly fried compared to what is normally served in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and North Carolina and were a little different at each place we dined. The later is a pepper, or more specially a pepper sauce you should try.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datil_pepper
We also braved the cold rain to visit Castillo de San Marcos, aka the old fort in St. Augustine. It is known for its “bastion system” of fortification, and the material used to construct it. You can see a close-up of thick coquina walls that absorbed or deflected projectiles rather than yielding to them.https://www.nps.gov/casa/learn/historyculture/coquina-the-rock-that-saved-st-augustine.htm
Did we find the Fountain of Youth? Well, since we seemed to be the youngest traveling couple in a sea of snowbirds, it at least gave us the illusion of being youthful; and going to Planet Fitness and seeing so many seniors pumping iron–it gave us hope. All I want is to age slowly and gracefully…and Stay Hungry.
