Florida, St. Augustine - Friday, December 6, 2013 - The Nation's Oldest City

The weather today was in the mid-80s, it was a beautiful day for a ride to St. Augustine.  I had such a good time today.

Along the way we stopped in the town of Neptune Beach to take a walk along the beach to pick up some shells.

 

We weren’t the only ones out enjoying the beach

 

 

 

We stopped at the Flying Iguana for lunch.  We were lucky enough to snag one of the outside tables.

We had an amazing queso dip and chips for an appetizer.  After seeing the size of it we decided on just one taco apiece for lunch.  The waitress recommended three, I’m glad we didn’t take her recommendation.  The tacos were delicious.  They had tacos made of some things you wouldn’t normally think of coming in tacos – like the one Greg had, it was called a “Southern Comfort”.  It had a southern fried chicken tender, redeye gravy and pickled okra (he said it was good).

After lunch we rode on to St. Augustine the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the continental United States.  They have begun to commemorate 450 years of unbroken history.  It was founded in 1565.

We went first to the Castillo de San Marcos.  Construction on this fortress began in 1672 and was completed some 20 years later.

 

It is built of coquina stone which is a locally quarried soft shell rock.

 

 

It supposedly didn’t become brittle and crumble under cannon fire.  Obviously that is true since it is still standing.

This is a hot shot furnace used to heat cannonballs so that when they hit wooden ships the ships would catch on fire.

 

 

The cannons were supposed to be fired at 2:30, so we waited.  I wanted to get a picture of the cannonball coming out of the cannon.

When the cannon went off, it was so loud I jumped and just got a picture of the sky.

The fort overlooks Matanzas Bay.  There were lots of boats on the bay today.  I thought this one was particularly interesting.

 

 

They had to raise the bridge to let a barge and a tall sailboat through.

The Old City gates are made of the same coquina stone as the fort.

St. Georges Street is for pedestrians only and has shops on both sides.

And more shops veering off the main street

This is supposed to be the oldest wooden school house.  It is one of the oldest wooden structures in the city.  The sun was shining from the wrong direction for me to get really good pictures this afternoon.

A couple of my pictures of the architecture did turn out ok.

 

 

We didn’t get to see nearly all of the city today, but the weather forecast is looking good for us to make a return trip – need to drink from that Fountain of Youth!!

Florida, Jacksonville - Thursday, December 5, 2013 - Pecan Park RV Resort

Rivers RV got our cooling unit ordered first thing this morning.  After that we headed across town to Pecan Park RV Resort.  We didn’t get any pictures of the park today even though the weather here is perfect – 80s and a slight breeze.  We realize these temperatures are high for this time of year even in Florida, but it sure is nice.  I’m glad we are here to take advantage of it.

We had a busy day.  Since our refrigerator went out on November 14 we have been challenged to keep our frozen items frozen.  We had just been to the grocery and did a month’s worth of shopping before the fridge went out.  So, we had a lot of meat in the freezer.  Today we had to admit defeat.  We couldn’t keep it frozen any longer, it was starting to thaw. 

So, we spent most of the afternoon cooking.  I cooked inside and Greg cooked outside on the grill.  We’ll be able to keep foods very cold, just not frozen.  We decided to cook everything and then just keep it cold.  We cooked a whole chicken, 8 chicken breasts, 1 lb. ground beef, 2 lb. sausage, 1 slab of ribs, 11 pork chops, 4 steaks and half a pound of bacon.

Tomorrow we are going to ride the Atlantic Coast Highway down to at least St. Augustine.  This weather is supposed to hold out until early next week, so we are going to be out enjoying it.

Alabama, Mobile - Wednesday, December 3, 2013 - USS Alabama Memorial Park

On Sunday we headed to back Gulfport, MS to spend the night at the RV repair shop so we would be there first thing Monday morning when our refrigerator part was supposed to arrive.

Going through Mobile we had to go through this tunnel.  Can you see why I hate taking the RV through here?  It definitely looks like it won’t fit.

 

Monday morning we were there, but the part wasn’t.  The truck that was supposed to be delivering it to a warehouse in Mobile hadn’t shown up yet.  It was scheduled to be there last Wednesday.  So, we stayed the night hoping Tuesday would be better.

Tuesday morning the truck showed up, but the part wasn’t on it.  That meant we would have to order it again and wait another 6-10 days to see if it showed up.  Nope, that wasn’t going to happen.  Since we were scheduled to be in Jacksonville, FL for a couple of weeks starting December 10 we decided to find an RV repair service in Jacksonville and start the process over from there.

After leaving Gulfport heading east we decided to stop at the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park.  The USS Alabama was in service during WWII.  It was commissioned August, 1942 and decommissioned January, 1947.  Sister ships of the USS Alabama were Massachusetts, Indiana and South Dakota.

 

A lot of work has been done by volunteers to preserve this battleship and to give an accurate portrayal of the life of the sailors who lived and worked here.

Our tour started here, down some really steep steps.

 

 

This is the view the Captain had from the navigating bridge.  Hopefully, the Captain was taller than me so he didn’t have to hold his camera over the edge of the wall to see what was below.

The Captain’s Quarters and the Captain’s Table were near the navigating bridge so the Captain could keep track of what was going on, day and night.

 

 

 

Lots of areas took care of the daily needs of the sailors.  The mess hall was important.

 

The tailor

 

The brig

Each of the enlisted men was assigned a swinging bunk.

and a small locker.  They had to store their clothes and any small personal items here.

The officers’ quarters were a bit nicer.

These guns are huge. 

I thought this was interesting.  The “talker” (the guy with the megaphone) receives information on sight deflection and angle from someone.  The “talker” then transmits this information to the sight setters for the guns.  It’s a wonder they ever hit anything.

 

 

In addition to the USS Alabama they have a submarine USS Drum on display along with several aircraft we didn’t have time to explore.  We did walk through the Aircraft Pavilion.  This POW/MIA memorial stood just outside the Aircraft Pavilion. 

Inside a POW camp was recreated based on stories from former POWs from the Vietnam conflict.  There was a story on the wall that told that on December 24, 1972 the North Vietnam guards gave socks to the prisoners.  This was a first.  The POWs fashioned a crude Christmas tree from the socks.  Since the guards didn’t seem to mind the Christmas tree, the POWs went one step further and made ornaments out of toilet paper.  They made handmade Christmas cards to give each other and exchanged gifts written on paper.  They made good on these gifts, presenting them to each other on Christmas of 1973.  In 1972 they didn’t’ know that it would be their last Christmas in captivity.

Last night we stayed at a small campground in Milton, FL and headed out early this morning for about six hours of driving to get to Jacksonville.

This afternoon we got checked in at Rivers RV Repair in Jacksonville.  We are spending the night at their facility so the service tech can look at our fridge tomorrow.  Once we find out what they diagnose, we’ll call the campground we are scheduled into on the 10^th to see if we can get in early to sit and wait on parts.