Today we went to see the Castillo de San Marcos, an historic fort on the waterfront in St. Augustine. It is the oldest standing fort in the U.S. and, since it is a federal site, we got in free using our good old access pass again. It is a very well-built fort with great views of St. Augustine visible from the upper gun deck even if it is a testament to the folly of fixed fortifications. It changed hands between Spain, England and the U.S. About 10 times but only two battles were ever fought there that resulted in the changing of possession. All the other changes were by treaties that were hashed out in Europe or other remote locations. Again, they are a little short of artifacts with the exception of cannons and mortars and they have a bunch of them. We arrived just in time to see a gun crew dressed as colonial Brits fire one of the cannons although they really aren’t shooting at anything because they use 5 slices of white bread as the projectile. The local pigeons, however, are well aware of what comes from the cannon’s muzzle and they all gather to eat the toast that sprinkles down on the beach just outside the fort after each discharge.
We then headed for the oldest house in the U.S. which was near some other buildings that are the oldest somethings in the U.S. From there we went to some other oldest stuff in the U.S. There seems to be quite a bit of old stuff here.
From there we popped down A1A to Fort Matanzas (Spanish for “slaughters”) down the coast a bit. There is a free boat ride available to get out to the island where it is located but the next available boat ride (45 minute wait) was sold out and the ride after that (1 hour and 45 minute wait) may be canceled because the weather looked like it was going to get ugly and the Feds were not skookum on flatboat rides in choppy seas. We begged off and went instead to look for seafood. We noticed on the way north that there are places called Matanzas Chiropractic (Slaughters Chiropractic) and Matanzas Restaurant and we happily let those slide past as we drove by. We found a place that had good seafood for me but nominal Caesar salad for Peg. Unfortunately, since they do not put their name on their receipts and my memory is doo-doo, we are unable to remember the name of the joint. I do remember that it was on the beach highway named A1A but all other bets are off.
I spent the rest of the day prepping for our departure tomorrow while Peg attempted to make a reservation for us tomorrow near Jacksonville. When we leave there for points north, we will have driven the entire length of I-10 from Riverside, CA to Jacksonville, FL. It is a great road.