November 16, 2022
This was a fun day with lots of historical things. We started out around 9:15 to get to the St Augustine Lighthouse. It is almost 150 years old and it’s beacon goes out about 20 miles I believe. We took the LightKeepers Tour and it was excellent. Lots of history of lighthouses in general and this one in particular.
Fun fact about lighthouses. Each lighthouse has its own day mark and night mark. Every lighthouse on the east coast has a different one so that sea captains have an easy way to verify where they are. This is not needed as much in the technology age but it was very useful prior to that. The St Augustine light is painted with the black and white stripes going around it with a red top. There is another one in the Carolinas I believe that has the same paint pattern but with a black top. This distinctive paint scheme is the day mark. The night mark is the light pattern from the beacon. This one shines with a continuous beam and an extra flash every 30 seconds. No other one should have this pattern along the Atlantic. The light house is the 2nd tallest in Florida at 165 feet. It has 219 steps to the top. We learned about the marine archeologists that work out of here. They look for the estimated 529 shipwrecks in the area and bring back artifacts. They also have a group that builds wooden boats by hand on the site. After our official tour, we climbed the lighthouse and got some pictures, toured the Light Keeper’s house and the WWII barracks. A local group had purchased the lighthouse from the USCG several years ago and they maintain it now.
Our next stop was lunch at The Conch House. They have outdoor tiki huts for some of the tables. It wasn’t crowded at all so we all put on jackets and ate outside. I had some seafood chowder and Deidre and I split some fried shrimp. Thank you Betsy for lunch. \240There was a baby alligator exhibit as well. They come from the local alligator farm and when they get too big they are exchanged for new babies. We saw at least 3 of them.
The Lightner Museum was next. It is one man’s collection of things that he picked up over the years. They had some beautiful works of art, statues, crystal, porcelain as well as many other things. Their special exhibit was quilts. That was fun and very interesting. David was a good sport in admiring things and then sitting down. The building used to be the fitness center with an indoor pool, sauna, spa, and exercise rooms for an old hotel which is now part of Flagler College across the street. The architecture was gorgeous. They had pictures of the building in use as the pool etc. I believe this closed down in the early 1900’s.
Then we went to the Castillo de San Marcos. This is the oldest Spanish fort in the country. We used our Senior National Park to get in so that was great. It was pretty. We wandered around and saw most of it. A typical old stone fort with lots of examples of cannons. The entrance to the harbor passes right in front of it. We could see the Lighthouse, restaurant and museum from the ramparts. At this point we were “historied
” out and it was time to go back to Palencia.
The weather was cool and breezy all day with no sun basically which made it a great day to do all of these things.
Back to the house to relax for a bit. Deidre made a delicious dinner of chicken Alfredo, asparagus, and salad. We chatted for awhile after dinner and then all went to bed for early rising in the morning. David was taking us to the airport at 7:45 so Betsy could make her flight. \240My flight doesn’t leave until an hour after hers.
