The St. Augustine RV Resort was super nice and clean. We stayed there for three nights but didn’t spend much time at the actual campground; Except for the first night, when we enjoyed the taco food truck and live music at the campground club house. The musicians invited a 14 yr old boy up to play a couple of songs during their set, too, which I thought was cool of them. The boy was pretty good, too.
On the first full day, we drove to Jacksonville. On our way to the airport, we stopped at Hemming Park to see the Horrified Head that was listed as a weird roadside attraction. It was worth the stop to take a few photos. The head seems to have gotten a bad cold, with green snot oozing out of its nose, haha. Since we had time to kill before Marissa’s flight, we walked to the Riverwalk and back to see a little more of Jacksonville. Alas, it was finally time to say good-bye to Marissa (again). Since the airport was almost an hour away from the campground, Randy and I stopped at the The Mosh to make sure the flight actually left this time. (which it did!)
We drove to St. Augustine Beach to watch fireworks on New Years Eve. We were pleasantly surprised at how smooth everything went all night long. We parked in a church’s parking lot and used the shuttle service to and from the beach. We got on immediately and got off at the third stop, near the pier where the fireworks would be shot from. Large crowds were starting to form right at the pier, so we walked down the beach a ways until we found a good spot to lay out our picnic blanket. It was a great show with a nice variety of fireworks, starting right on time and lasting 20 minutes. Afterwards, we walked away from the pier, to the second of three shuttle stops, in order to avoid the largest crowds. Since there was no line at Island Donut, we decided to get a few donuts for breakfast the next morning. By the time we left, though, a long line had formed. Then, we stopped at a MAYDAY ice cream shop to get a treat to eat while we walked to the shuttle, since it didn’t have a line either. And again, a long line formed behind us. There was a line at the shuttle stop, so I didn’t think we’d make it on the first one that stopped. But when we got near the front of the line, there were three seats left, although not together, that we were able to take since the people in front of us had larger parties. Nice! As we drove by the pier area, I saw a huge line at that shuttle stop, so it was definitely worth the short walk to the other stop. Plus we got ice cream and donuts out of the deal. What a great night!
HOWEVER, the next day did not go as well. We spent New Years Day riding the hop-on / hop-off trolley tour, to see most of the historical area in St. Augustine. I think I would have enjoyed it more if it had not been so crowded, and if it had not been a holiday when some things were closed, but I’m still glad we went. We ended up paying for parking at the Trolley Welcome Center since the free lots were full; but at that point, we were just happy to have found something! I had no idea St. Augustine was such a popular tourist destination for people all around the world. Along with French, Spanish and Chinese, we even heard someone speaking Russian.
We had a rough start, with trouble finding parking then trouble finding the trolley stops. When we had walked a few blocks and found one of the stops, the guy there asked us for our receipt in order to get a sticker to wear that showed we paid. I’m not sure why the lady at the welcome center didn’t do that for us, since I told her we had bought the trolley tickets online the night before. Anyway, we got the sticker and were glad to see the trolley arrive quickly. But, we both agreed that the tour guide was annoying, so we were happy to get off at one of the stops, to do a free self-guided distillery tour with a few unique cocktail samples. Thankfully, we got a better guide when we hopped back on.
Things went well until a large, very loud Chinese speaking family sat right behind us, so we couldn’t hear the guide. We moved to different seats at the next stop, but it was still annoying to hear them yelling to each other in the back. The driver asked them to be quiet once, but I don’t think they spoke English well enough to know what was going on. We stopped at the Castillo de San Marcos to see the old fort. Then we did the Old Jail guided tour, where the guide was dressed as an inmate and told stories from an inmate’s perspective. It was a bit corny, but cute and interesting enough.
Around 4:20pm, we tried to take the trolley back over to where most of the lights would be, but the traffic got really bad, with so many people coming to town for the Nights of Lights, so the trolley mostly just sat in traffic. We finally got up the nerve to hop off without being at one of the real stops, and enjoyed walking around much better than sitting on the trolley. (Thankfully, the driver didn’t seem to notice us hop off, or at least he didn’t make an example of us by saying anything.)
The architecture of the old buildings was amazing, especially the churches, Lightner Museum and Flagler College. Most of them were built by Flagler, whose name pops up a lot around St. Augustine. We walked down the pedestrian-only St. George Street and ate dinner at St. Augustine Seafood Co, which was way overpriced and nothing special, but it was convenient. It was starting to get dark after dinner, so we walked around more to see the lights. I thought the lights looked nice, but they didn’t seem special enough to warrant the crowd that came to see them.
Despite the frustrations with the crowd and the trolley, I could appreciate the history and architecture of St. Augustine and enjoyed seeing it. If we could do over, I would pass on the trolley and do a guided walking tour, since most of the stuff is easily walking distance. And I’d allow more time to do some of the tours inside the buildings, especially the Flagler College tour and Spanish Military Hospital Museum, avoiding a holiday when they’re closed. Perhaps we’ll be close enough to St. Augustine one day to try another visit there. (As long as it’s not during the Nights of Lights!)
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