Walking, walking, walking.....

On Monday morning I had booked a walking history tour in St Augustine through airbnb. St Augustine is the oldest city in the USA and is full of Spanish, French, and American history. Its history is full of intrepid people such as Juan Ponce de Leon and Henry Flagler. You should come here and visit and take a walking history tour as well so that I don't have to tell you all about it.

The architecture is classic.

We met our guide downtown at the Plaza de Constitucion. In the middle of the park is a memorial to men of the area who fought in wars. We really like the fact that it honours not only those who fought for the Confederacy but also black soldiers who fought for the Union and liberated many fellow slaves.

This downtown area played a critical part in the Civil Rights movement. Martin Luther King Jr was arrested right here on these steps when he tried to enter a swanky hotel. The hotel has since been demolished and replaced but the historical step remains. A few days after this the Civil Rights Act was signed into law.

The largest mass arrest of rabbis in US history! 

Thank goodness for that. 

I am easily distracted by trees. This tree is special. It is The Love Tree.

Do you see the cabbage palm rising up from the trunk of the live oak?

And these two silly kids smooching under the tree?

The palm is growing right out of the oak tree, by some freak of nature. 

Weird huh? 

Historical tour guides get a big kick out of it. 

Strange things happen in southern towns.

This is the original Catholic cemetery.

We should have done the tour of Flagler College. It is in what used to be one of the Flagler hotels, which is understatedly massive. Old Henry was a man of immense vision. You would have to see the size of the hotels to believe them. Henry made his fortune in oil (think, Standard Oil) and is known as the father of Miami and Palm Beach. Jeff and I are often impressed with the influence one person can have on history. Henry wanted a hotel to stay at in St Augustine, which he discovered when his first wife was ill, so he built not one but several over the years. He needed an easy way to get to his hotel so he built a railway. Our guide told us that he needed the land that a church was on so he built a new church for that congregation that was much nicer than the one they had.
This photo is a teeny tiny corner of the Flagler Hotel.

We were ready for lunch after the tour and I had a plan in place. A couple of friends had recommended The Columbian, so we gave it a try and we loved it. The setting was elegant and relaxing all at the same time. The food was delicious. I had fried yuca, even though it wasn't on the menu. Our waiter was delightful and asked the cooks to fry it for me rather than boil it. And flan for dessert. 

In the afternoon we drove slightly north to St Augustine Wild Reserve. You can click on the link to read all about it. I had gotten tickets on Groupon and by the time we finished the tour and saw what great work they are doing with the animals I felt so guilty that I gave them a donation as well.
We weren't allowed to take photos in the reserve, sadly. There was a liger with gigantism, which was a sight to see. Lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, other wild cats, a big black bear, wolves, coyotes, and all are rescued in various ways. Our guide told us so many stories about the individual animals, their funny likes and dislikes about food or caregivers, it was right up our alley and a perfect way to spend the afternoon. As we neared the end of the tour and we were across the pond from the wolves enclosure our guide told us that we could call to them and they would answer. So she howled, and we howled, and the wolves and coyotes howled, and it was a wonderful cacophony of sound. I felt a bit like Jane to Jeff's Tarzan.
No animal photos, but here's Jeff with the lovely red Charger that we were renting, which is almost as good!

A perfect day

Last year, on the way back from Haiti, Kenzie and I stayed for a few days in the Miami/Ft Lauderdale area. We had a blast and it was so beautiful that I texted Jeff that we should go down there together some time. 

A few months later, he was in the Tampa area and texted me that it was a beautiful place and we should plan a trip together. "You think?" I said.

So I did. 

We planned a week, mostly in St Augustine and then a couple of days in Orlando to do the free Disney World activities. Then last week we were bored and sat down to see if there was anything worth watching on the old Roku and we found a PBS Nature show about Florida. 

"Let's watch that," I suggested.

So we did.

And we discovered a cool place called Silver Springs where you could see manatees in the wild and the water is 99% pure so you can see all the way to the bottom of the river. I immediately Googled it and found glass bottomed boat tours and straight away booked the extended tour for Sunday.

We arrived separately in Jacksonville on Friday night and didn't reach our airbnb until one a.m. We had trouble getting to sleep because time zones and then the resident rooster started crowing right outside our very loosely attached bedroom window at 5 a.m. which did not make me happy because I had barely fallen asleep. I may have gotten an hour at the most and started the day slightly grumpy. The plan was to attend a couple of different markets and have a fairly easy day on Saturday, but the best laid plans do oft go astray. The first market apparently didn't actually exist, despite online evidence to the contrary and our most earnest attempts to find it. Then the second turned out to be a carnival, which did not appeal to either of our sleep-deprived selves, so we decided to look for lunch instead. We found some food carts, which looked promising, but the barbecue quickly went cold in the brisk wind that was blowing and we decided to go back to the house and take a nap.

Which we did.

We slept well last night, being barely conscious of the enthusiastic rooster this morning.

Honestly, who has an airbnb rental and then invites a rooster to stay?

Aside: The host couple also has a crazy old lady who lives in a room on the other side of the house and who accuses them of stealing from her. They let her stay for free after some hurricane and now they can't get rid of her and she stands on the road in front of the house most of the day, protecting her stuff.

True story.

I have to tell you, last year had its good times but for the most part was rough. I lost my zest for life for quite a long time and am only now recovering it. Great days have been few and far between. 

Today was one.

The weather was sunny, light breezes, not too hot and not too cold. Just like baby bear's porridge.

The drive was relaxing and the scenery was unparalleled. Long needle pine forests and small towns and everything was green and the sky was blue.

We arrived at Silver Springs and I was, as always, taken with the gorgeous Spanish moss that hangs from certain trees in the South. It's an epiphyte, dontcha know? 

Please excuse my obsession. I can't help it.

 Jeff is positively dwarfed by the trees at the entrance.

Here I am, sitting in the boat as we pull out into the river, hoping for a manatee sighting.

Silver Springs is one of the largest artesian spring systems in the world. There are 30 springs in the system and the water surfaces through vents on the bottom of the river. Water pours into the river through these vents at the rate of 550 million gallons a day. This is a great description of the area if you're interested in reading more about it. Silver Springs

 This is one of the first vents we saw. You can see the water churning out of the vent because it disturbs the surrounding sand and often shoots out crushed shells that come from the bottom of the vents. Some vents lead to caves that are so deep that their depth has never been measured.

I don't think I have ever been to a habitat that has so much diversity of wildlife. Wildlife that is, on the whole, seemingly unconcerned with we humans. Turtles, fish, alligators, all kinds of bird life abound.

The river has a bit of a bayou feel to it. Lots of cypresses and undergrowth. There were numerous kayaks and other boats on the river but it was still quite peaceful. 

This fellow was a fifteen-footer and I'm darned if I would have sat in a kayak this close to him. They are not fond of human flesh, apparently, but I don't think I would wait to find out.

You're probably wondering if we saw any manatees.

Oh boy, did we! Some swam under the boat and that was a short-lived thrill. We saw many others in the water close to the boat. 

And. 

I discovered that about an hour past Silver Springs is a place where you can swim with them, so I foresee another trip to this area in our future.

Because, who would not want to swim with a manatee?

 The birds were as unconcerned with human watchers as were the rest of the critters.

At the end of the boat ride we saw the Mammoth Spring, which has two vents and is 30 feet deep and 135 feet long. It is estimated that 45% of the water in the system comes from this spring. 

Many movies and TV shows were made on or in this river and in the upper left corner you can see statues that were left there after one movie. The vents are under the shelves that are apparent in the two photos.

Being a boat captain is Jeff's idea of bliss, so he had to get a photo with Captain Bob.

This is another of the abandoned statues that is in the education center. 

I was trying to look aloof but alas, it seems that I cannot.

After the boat ride we were still floating, it had been such a great two hours of discovery. We trod the raised boardwalk before we left.

Some movie producer released a bunch of macaque monkeys onto an island in the river, not knowing that they could swim, which they promptly did and now there is a large population of them in the area. We spotted some in the trees at the beginning of the walk.

More beauty than the mind can comprehend in this day.

Towards the end of the loop I turned a corner and there was this little family of macaques sitting on a log. They were busy picking little parasites off each other, I presume. As soon as they saw me with my camera two of them took off and the bigger one turned quite aggressive. He bared his teeth at me and I was suitably intimidated.

We crossed this river and it was so beautiful and so I snapped a picture and if I had done it half a second later I would have gotten that large bird up close. I didn't even know it was flying up until after I pressed the button.

This little bat was hanging from a small tree right by the boardwalk. 

I love this watermelon picnic table.
Somebody make me one.

We drove back to St Augustine but stopped in Palatka on the way back because there is a Ravine Gardens State Park that we wanted to check out. The ravine was created over thousands of years by water flowing from the nearby St, John's River. The Park was created in 1933 by the WPA and over 95,000 azaleas were planted there. They are almost at the end of their blooom, but we had a very pleasant walk around the 1.8 mile loop. I only complained a little bit about my right foot pain. 

Spanish moss. 

I love it.

Unreasonably.

I wasn't sure how I felt about this sign. I wasn't expecting to find random alligators on my path.

As we made out way back to our car, which, by the way, is a bright red Dodge Charger, we heard the song of a red cardinal. Even the cardinal, a usually shy bird that takes flight as soon as it sees people, was unconcerned with us. 

On the way home we stopped to eat at Cracker barrel, which is my new favourite restaurant. I think I will eat there every day until we go home.