St. Augustine

 Over Christmas break, we had talked about taking our family to St. Augustine.  Everyone we had met down here had highly suggested it for a day trip or even an overnight stay.  Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and we ended up going to Tampa and Clearwater instead.  We thoroughly enjoyed the family time, but still wanted to visit the first Florida city at a later date.  Thus, when my Dad said that he would really like to see St. Augustine, we jumped at the chance to my parents.

We started our trip to St. Augustine at 9 a.m. this morning.  It was a little over two hours away with a slight detour to drive past the home of John Travolta.  Once we arrived, we decided to first visit the Ponce de Leon Fountain of Youth Archaeology Park.  Since he was the one who first settled St. Augustine, it seemed only logical to us.  I was excited that we found parking close as I had read that it was difficult to find spots near the attractions.  The park was a little more pricey than we expected at $20 a person.  After talking about it and realizing that all of the museums in St. Augustine were around the same price, we purchased tickets for the park.  In the end, we were very glad that we did.

We started in the building that housed the Fountain of Youth.  We learned all about Ponce de Leon and the settling of the first European colony in present day United States.  As a complete surprise to us, de Leon was not actually looking for a fountain of youth, but instead potable water for his settlement.  After tasting water from the legendary spring, we weren't quite sure that it was drinkable or that it made us any younger, but it was fun to say that we drank from The Fountain of Youth.

Next on our list was the planetarium, where we learned how the explorers used stars to navigate the seas.  We all liked the presentation.  Our next stop was the original global show that was built in the late 1950s.  I thought it was really neat as it gave a visual description of all the trips that Columbus and Ponce de Leon took over five hundred years ago.  Our last show was my favorite.  We learned how to fire a cross bow from the 1400s and shoot a cannon from that time period as well.  Before we left, we passed through the mission church and saw the burial plots of the indigenous people that lived in the same area as the settlement.  We also walked the boardwalk to get a better view of the gulf.

All of us were extremely happy with our decision to visit the Fountain of Youth, but after two and a half hours, we were more than ready for lunch.  We headed to St. George street to look for a restaurant and found out why we were warned about parking.  It was absolutely packed. After trying a couple of different areas, we finally found a spot in a parking lot several blocks away from the main strip.  None of us minded the walk as there was so much to see and do.  We stopped at Barefoot Bills Bar & Grill on St. George street and really enjoyed our sandwiches.  We did a little bit of shopping where my mom purchased a visor and I got a St. Augustine sweatshirt.  We did some more people watching and my dad bought an ice cream cone before we headed back to the car.  All of us were exhausted, but very pleased with our day trip.