Last Day in St. Augustine

Today was our last day in St. Augustine and it started a bit rainy.  We got a late start after lounging around then headed into town for some hand made chocolate and local wine  - great gifts for folks back home.  From there we visited the Castillo de San Marcos, a national historical monument.  It's made from coquina mined locally and they say it's great stuff for this kind of fort; instead of shattering or breaking when hit with a cannonball barrage, it simply "absorbs" the munitions.  Unless they are the exploding kind, of course.  The fort was built in the 1500's and traded hands several times, from Spanish to English and back; it also had a role in the Civil War and was manned until just after WWII.  There were several school groups touring while we were there, but they were well behaved and the tour guides were very considerate of those of us there on our own.

A view along the outer wall.  This was over 10' thick.

Pat atop the wall.

Chuck atop the wall, with the view out the St. Agustine inlet in the background.

We made one last trip to the Matanzas River Inlet for a beach walk - one of our favorite places I think.  It is fun to see the river making its way out to the ocean and you can actually do a nice loop walk down the beach, along the inlet under the highway A1A bridge then up the river which is part of the Intracoastal Waterway.  From there, we went in to see the old town of St. Augustine and out to dinner at Harry's, a New Orleans style restaurant that was great.  A nice cap to our last but most pleasant day in St. Augustine.

One last, important detail is worth mentioning.  We got to share our Florida beach week with bikers from all around.  This was the week for the Daytona Beach "Bike Week" 2011.  That's about 50 miles south of here, but we saw plenty of riders throughout the week, out cruising and enjoying the warm weather.  Many of those bikes shared the interstate with us on the way down - mostly on trailers and in the back of trucks.