St. Augustine, FL - Week 6

 We start the week at the Drive in Church service

 

Tucson gets another walk at Princess Place Preserve

 

This time we try a different trail

 

 

 

 We also try a new Park closer to home

 

But the best day is when we join our friends for another ride on the Bikes.

We start out at Crescent Beach at Noon - we had hoped the fog would have lifted by now but it is still pretty dense at the beach

 

 We continue on heading towards Daytona Beach

 

 We stop in Flagler Beach for lunch at Tortugas

 

 What's Santa up to down there?

Looks like he's going surfing

and he slowly disappears into the fog.

After lunch, we head to Bulow Plantation State Park

to see the Sugar Plantation Ruins.   It's about a 1 mile ride down an old dirt road.  We encounter a couple horseback riders coming the other way.

 

 

 

It's a short hike from the Parking Lot

 To the Plantation.  Developed in 1821, from 1823 to 1836, it was the largest sugar plantation in East Florida until it was burned down by the Seminole Indians during the 2nd Seminole War.

 

Next we head to see the Fairchild Oak, about 4 miles down the road.

 It is humongous!  About 2,000 years old it is named after Botanist David Fairchild

 

 Our friend, Catherine is a Tree Hugger

We head over to Ormond Beach to the Harley Davidson Store so Rick and pick up parts of one of  his bikes

                We make it in 5 minutes before they close.   

Just enough time to drool over some Trikes.

We stop for some Ice Cream across the way

Another great week

St. Augustine, FL - Week 5

We start out the week with a drive down to Winterhaven, FL to meet Gary's ex-brother in law and his wife for Lunch.

Hiked along the East Trailhead for Moses Creek

Got in some golf

We had quite the galley watching us

We had a flock of Ibis fly in for a visit

Our friends have a couple bikes and took us along for a ride

A beautiful ride along the St. John's River

With a stop for BBQ

Gary had the smoked turkey and I had the Brisket  - Yum!

We finish off a wonderful week with a beautiful Drive-In Church Service.

 

St. Augustine FL, Week 4

 The week starts out with Drive-in church cancelled due to rain forecast, so we drive into St. Augustine for breakfast.  It starts pouring rain while we are inside, but stops just as we leave. 

We decide to attempt to walk around downtown St. Augustine.

It is raining again as we cross the bridge

 We park and it is down to a light mist so we venture out.

 All quiet in town on a Sunday morning

We walk over to Flagler College

Formerly the Ponce De Leon Hotel built between 1885 and 1887 by Henry Flagler, Railroad and Hotel Magnate.  It had 540 rooms and 

was converted to a college in 1968

The rain has stopped so we decide to walk across the Lions Bridge.  Looks like we have to wait for the bridge to come back down.

It is called Lions Bridge because of the lions that stand guard.

All clear!

 It crosses the inter-coastal waterway

Tucson checks it out

 

 Not too much money here in Florida

 Another Rocket Launch

 

 

 Time for some golf

and  we make it down to Matanzas Inlet to see the ship that sank 200 years ago during a hurricane and was unearthed by beach erosion after a storm.

 

more beach fun

 This snowy egret is enjoying it too.

 

More visits to the Squirrel Forest

Tucson isn't the only one looking

Thanksgiving morning we play 9 holes with our friends Rick and Catherine.

Then home for Thanksgiving Dinner

7lb Turkey breast in 1.5 hours in Air Fryer Oven

A Feast!

We give thanks for all we have.  We are blessed.