St. Augustine, FL A Nice Long Stay (10/19-10/27)

 St. Augustine is a cornerstone of Florida's history.  There is much to see and do here and although 8 days seemed a little long we wanted to have some dowtime in between sight seeing days to do things at the coach. 

We received a lot of Amazon packages during this time, made many errand runs to Walmart and other places to further outfit Ruth for our adventures. As I said in my previous post, this resort was very well run and they were very gracious about receiving all our deliveries.  I have learned that every camping location you walk around, whether it is the morning or evening you see new campers with things that you think you might like.  It is almost like a roaving Camping World market each day as people move in and out of your camping orbit.  

Our neighbors during this visit to St. Augustine were a very nice couple from South Dakota on their way to South Florida for the winter with their two Vizla's.  We chatted off and on throughout out stay and they gave us some good tips on when and where to camp in South Dakota should we pass through there. 

We found a really fun group of folks to play pickleball with at Treaty Park.  They were welcoming and were a lot of fun to play with.  I tried to get some guitar practice in when we had some time at the coach, but we were out and about quite a bit. 

We walked around the exterior of Fort San Marco but it was closed to visitors due to Covid.  We walked Old Town St. Augustine.Some shops were closed, but it seem to deter the many tourists walking St. George street on a nice sunny day. 

We met up with some friends and family who were nearby, visited some of our old haunts from when we lived in Jacksonville, FL. We even drove by our first house in Orange Park, FL.  Not much looked familiar to us as development had changed the landscape from 30+ years ago.  It was fun to jog our memories though.  

 

We enjoyed a day of wine tasting at San Sebastian Winery and distilled spirits at  St. Augustine Distillery and drove A1A to get some gorgeous beach views and see the dunes of Anastasia Island. 

If you are in St. Augstine, have a meal, lunch or dinner at The Uptown Swinery.  It is a very lovely place for yummy porky products. 

Wild Boar Sausage - Mike's Favorite

Of course, there was still laundry to do and meals at the motorhome.  Our next stop is Charleston, SC.  This will be approxitely a 4.5 hour drive time, out longest yet.  

St. Augustine Arrival Day (10/19)

So far, I feel the same about Ruth's departures and arrivals as I do when I fly, take offs and landings are the most fraught with possible complications.  This was only our 3rd departure and while we have already developed extensive interior and exterior checklists for all the tasks that must be completed it still seems to take longer than we had hoped to get on the road.  I am confident that this will impove over time, but at this point, it feels like we are trying to launch the space shuttle each time we move. 

There was a fair amount of debris on the top of the rig due to trees and birds.  Mike was on a ladder cleaning them for a while before we could bring in the slides.  Also, just was we were ready to depart, one of the large back driver's side bay doors did not want to shut/lock.  Mike was able to take care of it though and we pulled our of our site and headed toward the entrance to hook up the Jeep for towing.  We are not yet too confident on hooking up the tow vechicle in the site.  Upon departure from Three Flags, there were definitely some trees that should be trimmed which unfortunately scraped across the top of the coach.  I figure this will happen a million more times as we travel.  

The drive to St. Augustine was uneventful. We made a fuel stop in Savannah on the way up.  We have stopped at two Travel America Truck stops on this trip and used our EFS Fuel Discounnt card, more on that later.

In St. Augustine we booked our 8 night stay at Compass RV Resort. We were in site #148. It was a lovely, very well run, Covid responsible resort.  A few of the turns within the campround felt a little tight, but again Mike did a great job weaving through the park to our spot.  Our entire red pavered site was spacious and even had trees for Mike's new hammock. 

We settled in for nice long stay, not worried about moving again for a few days. We have not been to St. Augustine for several years, so this gave us a great base from which to explore.