Almost exactly a year ago, circumstances looked favorable for Ms. B. and me to plan
another trip to places far and wide with friends and regular travel
companions,
Terry &
Beth. They had been hoping to go
to the Caribbean for some time, so we committed to taking this trip with them. We made reservations, put money down, and decided that,
since it was a relatively short cruise (four days), we would visit St. Augustine for several days beforehand.
Then Brugger got
laid off from her job at The Mailbox (the company where we'd worked together for well over a decade), and, concurrently, I lost my lucrative freelance gig with them.
Still, since we'd lose a prohibitive amount of money if we opted to cancel, we figured we'd carry through with our plan. So...fookin' onward
it is.
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The logsheet of "Knock Knock Let Me In" (GCAZNPV)
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Thursday, February 6, 2025Departure day. Brugger and I rose about dawn, tossed our stuff in the
car, and drove from Martinsville to Terry & Beth's place in Kernersville.
We wasted no time transferring our belongings to their vehicle and getting our
asses on the road. The first part of the trip was easy enough; I found a cache
at a rest area, and we stopped for a tolerable lunch at
J's Corner
in Columbia. Afterward, though, traffic picked up considerably, and we ran
into a few snags, particularly around Jacksonville, FL, where a car had
crashed and burned up real good. Still, in general, the drive wasn't
intolerable, and we made decent time—for Ms. B. and me, a total of about nine
hours. Once we arrived at our lodgings, a nice AirBnB in north St. Augustine,
we unpacked and then set forth to find dinner, as the Great Starvation was
upon us. We opted for a nice restaurant in the Spanish Quarter called
Forgotten Tonic, which had great atmosphere and mostly delicious food. I had a big-ass
burger with havarti cheese, bacon, pickles, and other goodies on a big old
pretzel roll. Then a supply run at a nearby grocery store.
By now,
we were all feeling pretty wiped, but there was a geocache only a quarter-mile
from our lodgings, so I decided to walk after it. Interestingly, some fellow
geocachers of our acquaintance from back home—known as
The Border Reivers—had just been to the cache a couple of days ago. I
signed the log beneath their entry, then returned to the AirBnB to pen this
little portion of blog, and then crashed.
B-b-boom!
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Feeling blue at GCAZNPV
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Friday, February 7, 2025
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Home away from home—our St. Augustine AirBnB
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Although the AirBnB is very comfortable, particularly the bed, I unfortunately
had a poor night's sleep, due to some persistent, niggling physical issues;
hopefully, nothing serious. Anyhoo, once up, about, and fortified with coffee,
I felt reasonably human again. After a breakfast of biscuits and cinnamon
butter, which Beth had brought home from last night's restaurant dinner, we
set sail for the historical district and commenced to wandering. Eventually,
we settled in for lunch at a decent Italian-ish restaurant called
Pizzalley's Chianti Room, where Brugger and I split a fig & prosciutto pizza, which was
delicious. Then we opted to separate for a while, some of us to go shopping,
some of us to go geocaching (guess who did what).
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St. Augustine Basilica
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I hunted and found quite a few caches; in fact, I just about cleaned up
the entire historical district. (There really aren't that many here, so this
wasn't a particularly impressive feat.) They were all fun, though, and I added
seven or eight finds to my Florida cache count. We regrouped at a nice wine
bar called
Bin 39, but because it's pretty hot and muggy here, I felt more in the cold,
refreshing beer mode. Found a Hibiscus Wheat Ale that really hit the spot.
From there, we headed for an art gallery/wine bar called
The Bart on Aviles
(Bar plus Art equals Bart) and split a bottle of California GSM, which hit the
spot.
Again, some wandering. After a time, for dinner, we settled
on
Prohibition Kitchen, right next to Pazzalley's. At first, we were a little leery because their
live music, though mellow in character, was really, REALLY loud. However, the
very kind staff there seated us in the balcony at the far back of the
restaurant, which was perfect, as far as acoustics and intimacy go. Since I've
not consumed a healthy morsel since we got here, I ordered a veggie sandwich
(corned beets and spicy datil pepper slaw), though it came with yet more
fries, which have accompanied every meal so far. I love me some fries, but I
think I've hit the wall. Exceptionally high marks for this restaurant—very
good food and service that couldn't be beat.
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The Usual Suspects at Bin 39
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Given that this is my first visit to St. Augustine, I wasn't quite sure what
to expect. I must say, in general, I love the city's character. Lots of
history and culture, blended with the best of contemporary food, drink, shops,
and other attractions; touristy in places, but not overwhelming (at least at
this time of year; at peak season, the crowds are probably oppressive). Our
lodgings are as comfortable as any we've had anywhere we've
traveled—convenient to everything, but situated on a quiet, picturesque
avenue, with plenty of amenities. Terry and Beth have been here several times,
and I understand what draws them back for repeated visits. I expect that we'll
return at some point in the future.
Sadly, unless the local
geocachers add some caches to the landscape, any future caching here is likely
to be disappointing.
My only real caveat about the place is the
prevalence, at least in certain areas, of right-wing exhibitions of outright
hatred, particularly from local businesses. The most egregious I saw was a
sign on a restaurant that read "Dimmycrats are the evil within!" This kind of
shit is why we can't have the proverbial nice things. So often, I hear that
liberals are the ones who spread lies and hatred; but in my experience, all
evidence points to precisely the opposite—in the real world as well as the
virtual. I've never, ever seen public displays anywhere as vile and
hate-filled from the left, whereas it's become more and more commonplace to
see it from the right. So don't ever, EVER tell me that the right is not
spreading hatred and division because that is absolutely verifiable
bullshit.
And that's my closing for today. More tomorrow.
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Haunted Inn in the historic quarter
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Bustling St. George Street
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A troupe of dastardly, evil, murderous sociopaths running loose in the
streets of St. Augustine
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Saturday, February 8, 2025
A virtual cache lurked about a half mile up the road from our place, so once I
was up and had downed a jumbo-sized coffee, I set out on foot to see if I might
find what I needed to claim the cache. GZ looked like a pump station for the
city water system, but amid it all, there was monument to an individual who had
apparently died while saving a child from some industrial accident at that site
back in the 1980s. Not something one might expect to see at that particular
location. Anyhoo, success! I recorded the necessary information to log the find
and hoofed back to the house.
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Old Rodan and the Old Senator
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After we were all sufficiently caffeinated and felt up to the task, we
ventured down to the historical quarter, circled the same block several times
looking for parking (which we finally managed), and sought lunch at a nice
little joint near
Flagler College
called
The Floridian, recommended to us by an old friend from our days working at The Mailbox, as
she'd gone to school at Flagler. I found their brisket tacos quite good, if not
quite up to the standard of
Catrina's (in
Mebane, NC).
The rest of the gang needed to do some shopping and
drinking, so Terry drove us a little ways north of town and I set out on foot
for a half-dozen geocaches within about a mile radius of our drop-off point. I
hoofed it to several very fun caches, including one at the
Fountain of Youth Archaeology Park, another at the
Old Jail Museum, and another at "
Old Senator," a roughly 600-year old live oak tree. I knocked out a few others nearby and
then headed back to meet up with the rest of the gang at
Carrera Wine Cellar
on San Marco St. This turned out to be a colorful, enjoyable place, and I ended
up having a lengthy conversation with one of the local folks who was apparently
something of a horror fan. She was particularly taken with the fact that I'd
written some
Dark Shadows books and audio drama scripts, since
she'd been a huge DS fan back in the dark ages. Fun shit.
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The St. Augustine Lighthouse at sunset
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At last, we headed out to the
St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum, where I hunted yet another fun cache and the other folks went shopping
(again). Right at sunset, the lighthouse lit up, which made for a lovely
early evening sight. By the time we headed back toward town, the evening
tourist/dinner rush was well under way, so it was a slow ride across the
bridge over the Matanzas River.
For dinner, we chose
Casa Reina Taqueria, which turned out to be one hell of a popular place. We had over an hour
wait, but once in, they seated us on a second-floor balcony with a scenic
view of the city. Since I'd had tacos at lunch, I opted for chicken with
rice, beans, guacamole, pico de gallo, and tomatillo salsa, which was
delicious—particularly once I added some of their homemade hot sauce, which
was satisfying, though not that hot.
And that was pretty
much our day's adventure. Tomorrow, we're heading for Fort Lauderdale, and
the day following, onto Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas for a
four-day cruise to the Caribbean (specifically, CocoCay and Nassau).
Hopefully, we'll avoid any unpleasant snags.
Till tomorrow!
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Heading for Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth
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On the balcony at Casa Reina
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A couple of old folks at Longboards in Melbourne, FL
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Sunday, February 9, 2025Terry and I rose
almost with the sun so we could venture out for
an early breakfast. We had settled on a little breakfast joint less than half a
mile from our lodgings, but to our dismay, we found it was closed. So, we
wandered most of another mile down the road to the local
Denny's, where we indulged in a couple of cardiac-attack breakfasts—eggs, bacon, hash
browns, and pancakes (cinnamon swirl slapjacks for me; quite delicious). Then we
waddled back to our place.
Alas, it was time to bid adios to St.
Augustine. We particularly enjoyed our AirBnB lodgings; very clean, spacious,
attractive, comfortable, and very reasonably priced. Top marks to our hosts.
From St. Augustine to Fort Lauderdale is a couple of hundred miles and some
change, but we took a few turns for vittles, gas, and geocaches. We went into
Melbourne for lunch on the beachfront at a place called
Longboards, which had a most appealing ambiance, though the service was slower than a
salted slug trying to run uphill. The food, though, was delicious. I had a
platter of the biggest and best steamed shrimp I've ever tasted.
We ran into very heavy traffic on our approach to Fort Lauderdale, but
eventually we made it to our lodgings: a nicely priced, reasonably comfortable
inn close to the interstate, airport, and cruise port. Once checked in, we set
out in search of dinner. We'd found what looked like a very nice bistro not far
from our inn—a hotel restaurant, it turned out—but when we arrived, the menu
barely resembled the one posted online, they were out of cheese, and hopelessly
understaffed. After waiting at our table for twenty minutes without
acknowledgment, we decided to ride over to a nearby
Outback Steakhouse, the very act of which went against our long-held tradition of avoiding chains
in favor of local establishments, but by this time, it was getting very late, and
the Great Starvation had settled upon us. The food and service turned out to be
very good.
The need for additional wine for our upcoming adventure
was strong, so we found a nearby
Total Wine—the biggest Total Wine I've ever seen, actually—and commenced to shopping. A
cache lurked on the premises, so I snagged it for good measure. Once back at our
hotel, I decided to hoof it after a couple of caches less than a mile away. As I
made my way toward one of the caches, I noticed a laser-like spotlight aimed
into the sky, no doubt from the airport, which is less than a mile from our
hotel. Not sure of its significance, but I found it very cool looking. I managed
to turn up both caches without undue difficulty, and then trucked back to our
room for a goodnight glass of wine.
And tomorrow, lord willing, it'll
be off to the Caribbean.
