We are still at the RV repair for these three days. Stay around the campground in the mornings and go out to lunch and do a little shopping in the afternoons. Monday they finish evaluating what has to be fixed and we wait for the extended warranty work to be OK ed on Tuesday. Wednesday they take our motor home in first thing in the morning and work on it all day. They get everything done except the recall on the refrigerator and that will be taken care of in the morning.
Jan. 20
They take our motor home in first thing to do the ref. recall. We go to breakfast and when we get back our motor home is done. We are able to leave around 10 and are going to St. Augustine because we missed stopping there on our way down into Florida. We only have 110 miles to go today so will be there early. We met some nice people while staying at the RV repair campground and exchanged information cards. We are staying at a campground about 5 miles out of St. Augustine.
Jan. 21
Rained hard in the night but quit early in the morning. It is overcast and not too warm but at least it is not raining. Today we go into St. Augustine to visit two National Monuments. St. Augustine was established in 1565 and is the oldest permanent European Settlement in the continental United States. The town's principal value was as a military base for the protection of Spain's colonial trade and commerce. We decide to not take a sightseeing tour because the cars are open air and it is cold today. We drive the Jeep around the historic part of town and stop at Castillo de San Marcos National Monument. It was built in 1672 to 1695 as an outpost of the Spanish empire and built of Coquina, a natural sedimentary shell stone. It is the oldest original fort still standing intact in the U.S. Castillo went from Spanish to British control and back to the Spanish until the United States acquired what is now Florida in 1821. It continued as a commissioned military base until 1900 under the American name Fort Marion. We enjoyed watching the canon firing done by men in Spanish dress. Next we stop at St. Augustine Lighthouse which was constructed in 1871 to replace the old Spanish watchtower, Florida's first lighthouse built in 1824, that deteriorated and crashed into the sea. Our next stop was the oldest surviving Spanish colonial dwelling built soon after the English burned St. Augustine in 1702.
We drive by the Fountain of Youth but decide it is too cold to walk around the grounds. We also drive by the ornate Flagler College which is Spanish Renaissance architecture and was built in 1887 as the Hotel Ponce de Leon and now home to Flagler College. After lunch we go to Fort Matanzas National Monument which was built in 1740 to 1742 to protect St. Augustine from attack from the south. It is on the other side of the Matanzas Inlet and the only way to get there is by boat. The Park Service provide boat service to the fort. It's a very small fort where seven soldiers were rotated from St. Augustine for one-month duty tours at Matanzas. We finished the day with a drive on the beach past beautiful homes overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. There is so much history in St. Augustine and we enjoyed seeing the sights.
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| cannon firing at Castillo de San Marcos |
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| loading the cannon |
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| lighting cannon |
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| view from the top of fort |
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| St. Augustine Lighthouse |
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| Fort Matanzas |
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| Oldest House |
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| Flagler College |
It is sunny today but a cold wind is blowing. It has been cold here in Florida for the last several days and the locals are really complaining about the cold weather. After breakfast we go over to a Flea Market that is right next to our campground. It's very large and I don't think I ever got all the way around. There are lots of truck farms nearby growing cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, carrots, potatoes, radishes etc. We bought some fresh veggies and you wouldn't believe the size of the radishes. They are a little smaller than a baseball and they are good. Oranges, grapefruit, strawberries and pecans are also plentiful here. There are fruit and vegetable stands everywhere. We go out to dinner at Carrabba's and enjoyed Italian food.
Jan. 23
Sunny today with a slight wind blowing. It was below freezing last night and our water hose froze. After breakfast we move north the the town of White Spring and will stay for 2 nights. It is close to the Okefenokee Swamp that Dick wanted to visit. The swamp is actually in Georgia, right on the border of Florida and it is only a short drive. In the afternoon we drive there but I will put the rest of today in my next blog. Definitely Happy Travels, Barb
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