St. Augustine & Beaches

Day 22: We are still in Florida!  But, not for long.  Today’s destination: St. Augustine Beach.  We haven’t done an official “beach” day yet and I was determined to soak up some sun.  We woke at a Flying J near Palm Coast (best night’s sleep ever) and drove on up to St. Augustine Beach.

St. Augustine Beach was a quiet little town and the beach was wonderful (the whole 30 minutes experience). So, a fair-skinned redhead walks onto a beach with 50 SPF sunscreen….. annnnnndddd immediately fries like a pan-seared fish. Might as well roll over and get the other side too.

Chad has been working on his tan; he didn’t even apply SPF and still made it out fine. I cleaned off in the large, cold waves (maybe 65 degrees…still warm to me) and we were able to shower up on the landing. Hurray, clean road trippers! The whole ordeal plus showering was only about an hour….hey, I tried.

Thrilled to be clean, we made our way to the car and was stopped by very friendly Wisconsin tourists. They were excited because they saw a Minnesota plate in the parking lot and we ended up chatting with them for a while. Ma pulled out her camera and started showing me pictures of their current trip while jolly Pa spoke with Chad about booze in Savanna and places to see. Friendly northerners, eh?

After departing from our northern neighbors, we investigated the coffee shop up the road called The Kookaburra.  Now newly clean, I actually felt like I could put on ‘nice’ clothes (sorry Patagonia).  I blogged and we tried their drip Guatemalan coffee (very rich, dark), a tea mix of mint and flowers, and their Aussie pies (pot pie anyone?).  Yum!  How unique?

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around St. Augustine looking at the infrastructure. What a neat, old town. Kinda the oldest town in the States. The only thing that would have made the downtown better was if all of the workers dressed in the time-period clothing, like at the Renaissance Festival. The shops and town layout made it really feel like you went back in time! Might as well play the part too!

Their City Hall office building was inside a really old space which had a cafe, courtyard and water feature, jewelry and art stores, and a museum. There happened to be a sculpture of a lady with a conch shell that I found beautifully carved.

I blurted out, "her butt is as hard as a rock!" in the museum entry way and caught Chad looking lol. ;)

Time for some grub.  Back on the road, I researched for food place(s) while we made our way to Jacksonville.  Oysters….and during happy hour!  We ended up at the Blue Fish Restaurant and Oyster Bar (yum…I think?  I couldn’t remember what oysters tasted like...) located in the Avondale district near the harbor. 

Snagging seats at the bar, we had an eclectic bar tender (great sense of humor) and sat next to a local fire fighter (a regular at the establishment). After asking for assistance, the bar tender showed me how to eat one (the horseradish was no joke….I choked. It was HOTTER than normal..).

We also had a clam dish in tomato/cheese sauce…ugh, I could eat that again!  The fire fighter also shared with us about the area (apparently well to-do) and suggested a great burger joint up the road, if we wanted to try another place.  We asked about a dessert, and the bartender and fire fighter both immediately pointed across the street to Biscottis.  Voted the best bakery in town, they have the ultimate carrot cake.  Sold.

Hello, Biscottis. The lady served us up a slice of carrot cake and a slice of their best seller Tropical Grand Marnier…something yummy with pineapple. As she was serving up one of the last slices of their pineapple one….she just dumped the remaining slice into our to-go bin. “oops!” Two for the price of one! THANK YOU. So….no need to go to the burger place haha we have cake.

Down the street there was a little park and we ate on a picnic bench. The carrot cake was so dense, flavorful with spices, citrus tones, and the frosting was legit cream cheese with a hint of sweetness. SO GOOD (better than Costco’s carrot cake with apricot filling). The pineapple cake was fluffy, moist and had a cream cheese frosting. Still good, but not in comparison to the carrot.

After dessert, we drove around the neighborhoods to see what the houses looked like (the firefighter also mentioned that there were some big houses to see near the harbor “houses you can’t even buy if you won the lottery”).

The houses were big, but Chad and I agreed that Dallas, TX had way bigger, crazy, huge houses in the mansion neighborhoods we toured through. Either way, we were able to see the little water ways and cross a bridge to a little island of homes.

WE ARE FINALLY OUT OF FLORIDA. Not that Florida is bad, it just took us a while (hello, we are on day 22 of the east coast and we have just arrived!!). Now we can really start up the coast line. Camp for the night was at a Flying J about an hour south of Savanna. Night night! (No tummy issues from the cake 😊).