Northeast Florida

We arrived at Jacksonville Naval Air Station on April 24th to visit with Teri's sister, Coralee, and her husband, Lance.  Coralee and Lance are full-time RV'ers so we try to meet them somewhere when we are traveling.

We spent a full day in St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States.  These city gates were built in 1808 as a line of defense for the city and were the only way into the city at that time.

Many of the historical buildings were done in the Spanish style with terracotta spires and moldings.

The Flagler Memorial Presbyterian Church was built by Henry Flagler in 1889.  He had it built as a memorial to his only daughter, Jenny. 

Henry Flagler constructed many buildings throughout St. Augustine - many of which are currently by used by  Flagler College - a four year liberal arts college.

A statue of Ponce de Leon who was only 4' 11" tall is located in the Plaza de la Constitucion near many shops and restaurants. 

This is St. Augustine's one and only skyscraper.  After this was built, the city passed laws making it illegal to construct a building over three stories high.

This live oak tree is 600 years old.  It was amazing to think how many changes have happened around this old, old tree.  It is called the Old Senator.

Couldn't resist a picture of this guy.  He greeted us as our trolley stopped at the Ponce de Leon Fountain of Youth site.  Clothing and speech of the era of Ponce de Leon.

A picture of the medicine cabinet for the oldest drug store in the United States.  Since St. Augustine is the oldest city in the US, there are a lot of the oldest kind of things.

One of the biggest highlights of our trip to this area was finding this marker of the OST.  The OST Association selected St. Augustine as its beginning or zero mile.  The celebration of the completion of the OST included the dedication of a six-foot diameter coquina stone monument.

What a photo opportunity.  We found this official marker of the OST.  We felt like our search was complete.

Here's a little info from the Nat'l Park brochure about Fort Castillo (pictures below) that we visited while in St. Augustine.  "Fort Castillo is one of the most extraordinary places in the United States; incorporating over 335 years of America's history and culture.  Construction of the Castillo de San Marcos started in 1672 making it one of the oldest standing structures in North America.  This fortress has served six different flags, survived hurricanes, and withstood bombardments and sieges.  The structure has undergone many changes over the years but appears today much as it would have looked at its final completion in 1756."

We saw and heard a loud presentation of muskets.  It seemed like there were a dozen steps that took forever to do before shooting them.  They put the flint in, then put the powder went in, then the ball, then signal to fire in unison.  Since they are not really accurate, they had a line of shooters so some hits would be made.  Those that struck were very deadly.  The time to prepare would never work for deer or elk hunting at home.

We wondered if this street might have existed during the OST era.  Actually, most of the streets in the downtown area of St. Augustine were very narrow which is typical of the old cities of the US.

A number of the homes were marked as historical and the signs gave a little information about the house.

Another day, we visited Jacksonville Beach since it represented another section of the OST.  The highway was a local road at the end of Beach Boulevard.  Today there are no remnants of America's southernmost  highway.

It was breezy but also a gorgeous day on the Atlantic Ocean.

We visited Fort Caroline which was the first planned French settlement in what is now the United States.

This particular display reminds us of the battles to conquer and rule the United States as well as the evolution of the United States to its present days.

There aren't any parts of the original fort left today so all the displays are replicas.

We enjoyed a stroll around a mile long nature trail with lots of information about the local flora.

We really enjoyed our visit with Coralee and Lance and can see how much they are enjoying being full-time RV'ers.  We said good-bye the morning after this picture.