Historic St. Augustine, FL

We left home at 4:30 in the afternoon for our 6:40 pm Allegient Air flight out of Huntington Tri-State Airport headed for Sanford Airport near Orlando, Florida.  We ran into a number of people we knew at the airport including Sarah’s friend, Lauren who is living in the Parkersburg area.  As we were preparing to board for our flight, we saw Natalie and Wendy who arrived from Salt Lake City after attending an EL training there. 

Our 95 minute flight was uneventful and was well worth the $50 cost of the airfare from Huntington.  We arrived at Sanford around 8:30 and picked up our bags and the Nissan Sentra rental car from Enterprise.  Since Mary had packed ham sandwiches for the flight, we were not hungry when we arrived in Florida.  The drive from Sanford to our Super 8 in Daytona Beach took about an hour and there was very little traffic.  Our room is nothing fancy but is adequate for our needs and includes a small refrigerator and a microwave.  Our room also has a small balcony that overlooks the ocean. 

We woke up early on Monday morning and had a cup for tea before heading north toward St. Augustine.  We made a quick stop at Pubix for some bottled water for the trip.  We arrived at St. Augustine around 9:30 am and found a ticket booth for Old Town Trolley.  We purchased three day passes that include admission to several museums and the Alligator Farm.  We took the trolley around the town and enjoyed our driver’s interesting comments on the history of the area.  After the trolley ride, we walked across the street to Castillo de San Marcos which is the oldest masonry fort in the continental US.  

We were impressed with the construction of the walls from a stone called coquina which is like a concrete made of tiny shells.  We came back into town and had lunch at La Herencia Cafe which is a local Cuban restaurant.  Both of us had the Cuban sandwich which is roasted pork, ham, Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard on Cuban style bread.  We had black beans and rice on the side.  We both enjoyed our lunch.  The weather was mostly sunny but had some periods of cloudiness.  However, the temperature was nearly 80 degrees which felt pretty good to us compared to the temperatures we left behind at home.

After lunch, we got back on the trolley and rode over to the area near Flagler College and many of the historic locations in the city.  When a light rain started, we decided to do some indoor sightseeing so we got back on the trolley and rode to St. Augustine Distillery.  The small distillery makes Vodka from sugar cane as well as gin.  They are starting to produce a Bourbon but it will be several years until it has aged to the point of being available to market.  We were impressed that the distillery uses heirloom sugar cane and purchases all of their ingredients from locally grown, non GMO sources.  The Vodka was a decent drink but neither of us likes gin so we were not tempted to have any of their products shipped home.  Since we are not vodka or gin drinkers, we are not the best judges of the spirts produced there.

Since the rain was still heavy when we left the distillery, we took the trolley for the short ride to the San Sebastian Winery where we toured the wine making facilities and learned that their wines are made from Muscadine grapes which grown much better in the subtropical climate than many other traditional wine grapes.  We had an extensive tasting of a number of red and white wines that ranged from very dry to sweet port and sherry.  We enjoyed the tasting very much.  After spending about an hour in the San Sebastian Winery, the rain had actually intensified so we took a short trolley ride to Whetstone Chocolates.  We were disappointed that the last tour of the day had departed so we browsed the gift shop then caught the trolley back toward where we had parked the rental car.  Since we were pretty much soaked, we decided to drive back to the Super 8 in Daytona to dry off and change clothes before going out to dinner in Daytona. 

We tried to eat at Caribbean Jack’s but it was under renovation so we went to Bay Street Seafood nearby.  We had excellent meals at great prices.  I had blackened catfish and Mary had local butterfly shrimp.  Her shrimp had a slightly different taste and texture than other shrimp we have had but they were quite good.  We both had homemade onion rings and cole slaw on the side.  We both enjoyed our meals and the bill for both of our meals was $25.  We drove back across the Halifax River to our room at the Super 8.

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