A 400-Year History...

When we left Daytona Beach on March 9, it was a sad day. Fortunately, we were destined for another great adventure. We took route A1A north for 58 miles until we crossed over the Bridge of Lions – a historic bridge featuring two gigantic marble statues of lions (which aren’t there right now due to renovations) – and entered St. Augustine, Florida. It’s one of the loveliest places I’ve ever seen. Our friends in Daytona told us to stay at the Monterey Inn - a simple motel with wrought-iron railings which I would certainly recommend because its location couldn’t be better; it’s across from the Matanzas River and within walking distance to everything in town.

For anyone who is interested in the history of the United States, St. Augustine is a destination that should not be skipped. It is the “oldest city in the nation”, the longest continually occupied European settlement in the U.S. I didn’t know that! I loved it; one of the best parts about traveling for me has been learning history about our country that I didn’t know before. I spent my life in the land of the thirteen colonies, but St. Augustine was around way before them.

It all began back in 1565, when a Spanish explorer named Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles (I call him Don) first sighted the coast of Florida. The date was August 28, the Feast Day of St. Augustine (which is a day I have personally always celebrated faithfully).

St. Augustine flies five flags to symbolize its heritage: the United States flag, the Confederate flag, the flag of the kingdom of Spain, the British flag, and the Burgundy Cross, which was the Spanish military’s flag from 1506 to 1785 – a white background with a red X shape across it.

It’s amazing that St. Augustine has survived since the 1500s, because it was burned to the ground the first time in 1586 by Sir Francis Drake. Sir Drake is generally regarded in a positive light as a great mariner, which is true, but in reality he and his men also committed plenty of vicious acts including looting St. Augustine.

In 1668, the pirate Robert Searles captured a Spanish ship, sailed into St. Augustine under the guise of being a Spaniard, and plundered the town, killing sixty residents as he did so. Legend says that there was a five-year-old girl that was among the murder victims, and her ghost haunted Searles for years, appearing to him at night, and it eventually drove him insane and caused him to commit suicide. That’s what you get, evil pirate captain.

After the pirate raid of 1668, the Spanish queen decided that St. Augustine needed some sort of fortress to protect the nearly-destroyed city. In 1672, construction of the Castillo de San Marcos was begun, and the fort still stands today. It’s about an eighth of a mile from the Monterey Inn and it’s an amazing structure that dominates the landscape by the Matanzas Bay. The Castillo is square-shaped, with a courtyard in the center, diamond-shaped bastions flaring out in each corner and a now-dry moat surrounding its high gray walls. Cannons cover the entire top of the fort. It appears to be built out of gray stone, but when you are up close to the walls you see it’s made out of coquina, (“little shells”), which is a building material comprised of limestone, sea shells, and coral. If you look closely, you can clearly see ancient seashell pieces studding the walls. It’s said that the coquina is virtually indestructible, and it absorbed the impact of gunfire and cannonballs fired by the British in the 1700s as they tried to capture the city. Since its construction, the fort has never fallen to an enemy attack. That’s a pretty decent track record.

In 1702, the entire population of St. Augustine (about 1200 people) spent two months inside the walls of the Castillo while British forces fired – but the British did not take over the fort. I can’t imagine having to hole up in a fort for two months with all the people of my town while cannonballs are being fired at me...that must have been some strained dinner conversation. I bet there were lots of new St. Augustine babies born nine months later too…romantic times inside the Castillo. There is a giant oven on the grounds of the fort that was used for heating up cannonballs that would then be fired at wooden enemy ships. When the British couldn’t infiltrate the Castillo, they set fire to the city instead, burning almost all of St. Augustine to the ground again. So the residents of early eighteenth-century St. Augustine, after spending two months holed up in a fort and having cannonballs flying around everywhere, were powerless to do anything as their city burned – but they survived to rebuild.

The downtown area isn’t huge, but it is charming – narrow streets with restaurants, historical houses, and little trinket shops that  beg to be wandered around. Sarah, Bill and I went to the Castillo and went our separate ways, and then we ran into him later, trundling along the cobblestones on his bike. He’s logged 2726 miles so far! St. George Street is the main street for shopping in St. Augustine, and no cars are allowed on it. Some walls in the downtown area are made of coquina also. I like that – maybe if I ever get rich I’ll have a fireplace in my house made out of coquina and throw some snail shells or abalone in there for color. No drab white clam shells in my coquina.

Bill and I went for a walk and checked out some art galleries; of course all the paintings I liked were at least $1500. How are normal people supposed to start art collections? I appraised my car online, and it’s worth about half that. So I could either have two ’93 Tauruses, or own a two-by-two piece of canvas with paint splashed on it? What is wrong with society?

We wandered into the wax museum, which was one of the most random places I’ve ever seen. In one display, the cast of Seinfeld was depicted (and George Costanza was perfect…just perfect) next to Elvis. I fail to see the correlation. Most of the wax figures were behind ropes or glass cases – except for Brad Pitt, who was standing right out in the open and whose handsome waxen face had been almost scraped off by ladies’ fingernails. They also had a ‘death’ section in the museum, behind a curtain, which consisted of wax figures of humans being tortured and impaled, and one giant alien creature with fangs. RANDOM! Bill and I each put a quarter into an old-fashioned carnival-type machine to find out what kind of person we were. After the flashing lights dimmed, it revealed that I was a tax cheat and Bill was a cold fish. Good to know. 

Another great place to visit in St. Augustine is the Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum, which featured amazing exhibits such as: pictures of a man born with two irises in each eye, shrunken heads, a hat a woman made out of her own human hair, the Lord’s Prayer written on a grain of rice, video footage of a man who had a gigantic horn growing out of the back of his head, pictures of a cannibalistic man who claimed to have eaten over 900 humans, and other equally charming examples of human oddities. At the end of the museum, you walk through a big tunnel that’s an optical illusion – the walls are spinning and blacklit, and you walk on a walkway that doesn’t move – but you feel like it is – and nausea kicks in. It was awesome.

Two of our Daytona friends, Wylie and Tiki Bill, took a day off work to come and hang out in St. Augustine with us. They knew their way around – we went to the Milltop Tavern, which is high above the town, outdoors, among the trees, with birds flying around and tiny lizards perched on the railings. We also went on a sunset sailboat ride in the Matanzas Bay, where they allowed us to raise the sails and steer the boat, and they offered beer, bananas, and Doritos. That’s my kind of dining! The bathroom in the boat (the “head”, in sailing terms) was miniscule and to be in that enclosed space made the feel of the waves even more intense – it was like being in a 3” by 3” submarine down there – not the most pleasant of experiences. We also went to a bar called Trade Winds, where a band called Matanzas was playing – they were great; the lead singer had a very impressive ZZ Top beard, which gleamed silver under the lights as they played covers of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

As this is my final Florida blog, I must make another note about Florida wildlife: palmetto bugs. Palmetto bugs are cockroaches, but they are much worse than roaches because: they are bigger than roaches, sometimes reaching a length of THREE INCHES; they aren’t afraid of the light; they have armor which makes them unsquishable; and they can FLY. ENORMOUS FLYING ROACHES. They are the most awful, disgusting bugs EVER.

The schedule I’m on is my favorite – the one I had in college – staying up very late. I love the nighttime, the early morning hours that bring the following day, the world when most people are asleep.  It’s a great time of day. I went for a walk on the streets of St. Augustine alone at night; along the Matanzas River and then along the quiet, narrow streetlamped roads, which are landscaped with rows of identical, full, lush palm trees. The weather was beautiful; slightly breezy and warm, and the moon was out and brilliant, and it was a really calming time. I love long nighttime walks.

The only other time I’ve been in Florida was about six years ago when I went to Orlando, to Disney World. My impression of Florida then was Mickey Mouse and highway – scrubby vegetation, no real trees. My first impression, I freely admit, was incorrect. There is so much amazing beauty to be seen in Florida and I am glad that I feel differently about the Sunshine State now. Even though it is flat. And hot.

Comments

[Sheena]

Certainly one of the many reasons I won't venture south is the prehistoric bugs. It's bad enough that New York cockroaches are impervious to poison and even the business side of a flip flop.

If find yourself coming through NYC, give me a shout. If it's not on your itinerary, just tell Bill that he should definitely bike over the Brooklyn Bridge at least once. :-) Then we'll take you to the Brooklyn Brewery for some good beer.

Happy travels Steph!

[Robert Sugar]

I requested the life history of a pirate of the 1700s by the name of Don Pedro and I got a run-down, or shoud I say run-around, of St. Augustine.