St. Augustine and Daytona August 1-3

Ryan and I flew to Orlando on August 1st and landed just before 3pm. My sister (Teri) and my 13 year old niece (Kailey) live in Orlando and picked us up at the airport! We immediately drove about an hour north to my folks new apartment in Orange City. Their apartment is super nice and very large for a one bedroom. I think it’s around 900 square feet! They gave us a tour and introduced us to some of their friends. They are really happy there and it was a good move for them. We all went to dinner at Olive Garden and did some shopping at Target. A huge storm rolled in while we were in Target. But it was short lived. We got my parents and their shopping goods dropped off at their apartment and said our goodbyes. Teri, Kailey, Ryan and I then took the back highway and drove to St. Augustine. It ended up taking about 1.5 hours from there. But we avoid driving on the main busy tollway (I think it’s I-95), and it was a good thing because there were lots of accidents causing huge backups from the rain. We pulled into the TRYP Hotel around 9:30pm and settled into the Family Suite we booked with a view of the marsh! It was a nice large room so we could all spread out. Separate living room, kitchenette area, bathroom and a bedroom! We got to bed pretty let, well after 11pm. We didn’t set an alarm for morning so we could all try to rest a bit.

I think we were up around 8:30am or so. It took a bit for everyone to get ready for the day. We took the Old Trolley Tour of St. Augustine! Teri drove us to the ticket booth with free parking about 1-2 miles up the road from our hotel. We bought the Fountain of Youth and Trolley package. It included our admission to the Fountain of Youth, the old Museum, the old country store museum and the old jail, in addition to on/off privileges on the Trolley for the day. I think we were on our trolley around 11 or 11:30am. We did the entire tour of the city on the trolley first. It helped to give us the lay of the land. I was instantly in love with this city! There is so much history and it’s absolutely beautiful!!!!!! It’s so green there!!! Even though the sun was shining and it was hitting the 90’s for the day, the ocean breeze helped a bit! There are so many old churches, historic buildings, shopping areas, restaurants, etc! We really could have spent an entire week here! There is a pedestrian street called St. George street. There were so many shops and restaurants. And there is one place that sells real Dole Whips!!!!!! I got a pineapple/vanilla swirl and Ryan got the straight pineapple. Just as good as Disney’s!! I was also in love with the architecture in this city!! There are so many different styles mixed throughout all of the historic district.

Our first stop we got off at was the Fountain of Youth and it was lunch time! They have a BBQ place right on property and we opted to go ahead and eat. It was really good! Prices were pretty reasonable too. But while we ate, it started to DUMP rain! We were under table umbrellas, but poor Teri kept getting rained on, so she had to put her poncho on. By the time we finished our lunch, the rain had stopped. So we entered the Fountain of Youth park. Our first stop was in the room with the spring fountain. We drank from it and it tasted like bad Florida water!! And I didn’t feel any younger! They talked a bit about the history of the story of the Fountain of Youth. It really came down to the natives living into their 80’s and beyond (and this was back in like the 1500’s) when everyone else wasn’t even living to their 40’s! So they assumed it was the water. But it was really due to them walking and being so active, no smoking or drinking any alcohol. They just lived healthy lifestyles. But fun to learn about! We saw an old cannon demonstration there and watched a blacksmith work for quite a while. The views here were just beautiful since you overlooked the inlet! There were peacocks everywhere and a few white ones! There were several babies walking around with their mamas too! So cute! This is a beautiful park to spend a good hour or two at!

Our next stop was to the old museum that showed history and artifacts from St. Augustine history. It is just a small little place and took maybe 10 minutes to go through. We then joined the jail tour. We did this during the day, so it’s not so creepy. But it’s crazy the tight conditions they inmates lived in. They do a ghost and graveyard tour at night and I guess this can get a bit creepy. Cecil was our inmate tour guide. Our last tour stop was the old country store museum. The two tour guides are in character as if they are in the 1800’s. It was really fun to see all of the old wares people could buy! There was one of the old style bicycles with the tiny front wheel and the ginormous back wheels on it. Apparently men you buy them to show up, but none of them could safely ride them! So they were more of a status symbol than anything else! They also had a goat/dog/child powered washing machine! It’s basically like the first treadmill attached to the washing bin. They typically used goats to power it by having them walk on the belt. But dogs or even children were known to be used to power it as well!

We then drove up Highway 1 a bit north just to check things out. They have a National Guard and I believe it’s an Air National Guard base? As we were driving up the road, an army jet flew right over our car to land on the runway that was right next to the road! We had dinner had a burger/pizza place closer to our hotel. The pizza was amazing!!!!! Wood fired! And the prices were good too! Ryan’s burger was huge and delicious as well. It came with a side of huge steak fries too!

Our hotel room offered a beautiful view of the sunrise over the marsh. Ryan and I tend to wake with the sun. We got up and checked out of our hotel by 10am. Teri drove us to the covered parking garage. It was $15 for the day, but worth it to have the car in the shade! We had a short walk from there to the Fort! Wow! This is an amazing place! The fort is simply beautiful! They only suffered 4 fatalities in battle there, and 3 were actually due to a misfired cannon. It was an impenetrable fortress with how they built it. We watched another huge cannon demonstration, so cool!! Then we wandered around and through all of the various rooms. If you should ever go here to visit and it’s a hot day, you must go first thing when they open! Otherwise this fort get crazy hot!!!! I could see the cutest looking house with a tin roof across the inlet, I claimed it as mine. When I got home, we looked it up on Zillow and it’s estimated to be worth $1.5 million! We finished touring around lunchtime. So we walked down St. George Street and found the Pizza place we spotted yesterday, it smelled amazing. We got there and they had so many options and all authentic. It was hard to choose! So of course we ordered too much food so we could try it! We were all absolutely in love with this place and it was cheap!!!! Ryan and I had 2 ginormous slices of pizza, a calzone and a pop and it was like $20! It was also air conditioned and fairly quiet when we were there. We stopped there later to get some gelato and it was packed. SO apparently if you go before 1pm, it’s less crowded! We walked around the outside and courtyard of Flagler College. The architecture is simply stunning! We then toured a Memorial Church and it was so beautiful inside. We then waved goodbye to the city and drove over the Bridge of the Lions to go to St. Augustine Beach to see it. We didn’t have time to change and go play in the water, but we wanted to see it. We found a place to park and walked over the dunes to get there. HOLY COW! This beach is stunning!! My jaw dropped and I was a bit choked up. I’ve never been to the beach in Florida, I’ve only seen the Pacific ocean from California and Mazatlán Mexico. It’s so different to see the Atlantic! The water was warm, the sand was white and soft and there were lots of shells! I would have loved to stay there all day!!! But we didn’t have the time since we were heading to Daytona Beach for the night. On our way out of town, we stopped by their Outlet mall. It wasn’t super exciting, but we did walk through some shops and such.

We had about an hour drive down to Daytona. We could basically just see trees on either side of the road the whole way down. Our navigation had us go through the old part of Daytona and none of us were impressed. We thought we knew where our hotel was (Hilton Garden Inn Oceanview). So we tried to find a place to get dinner. Everything was looking pretty sketchy but we found two brand new restaurants right on the beach, one was an upscale Mexican restaurant. We opted for that one. Our food was pretty good, but nothing over the top to write home about. The best part was the view though! Our table was right by the full length windows and a direct view of the ocean!! Jaw dropping! We then tried to get to our hotel. We saw Hilton’s but it didn’t look right. Teri pulled the car up in the valet line while Ryan and I went in to ask. Turns out we put in the wrong Hilton for our directions (thank goodness since there was a huge college football group staying there). They directed us that our hotel was about 2 miles down the road. As we drove down the road, the area got better and more beautiful! The first area we were at was right at their carnival/pier area. So I would imagine that this is where the spring breakers all head! We got checked into our proper hotel. We booked an upper level ocean view room. Boy, it did not disappoint!!!!!! We still had some daylight when we got there. Our curtains were already open and we could see the ocean as soon as we entered!! We stood out on our balcony for a bit. Then changed into our swimsuits. Ryan and I walked the beach until it was dark. Then we went swimming for a bit. The pool faces the ocean. Teri and Kailey went down to swim but Kailey was tuckered out and they went to bed early. Ryan and I got back up to the room around 9:15pm and got ready for bed. We set the alarm to go off just before sunrise. But we didn’t need it because we both awoke once there was hinting light. I took my coffee and breakfast out on the balcony and Ryan and I sat and watched the sunrise. It was breathtaking! What an amazing way to start the day!! Ryan and I then got dressed in workout clothes and walked the beach for nearly an hour. We waved at Teri sitting out on the balcony a few times. Kailey was slow to rise. We got back to the room and got showered and ready, packed up and out of our room before the 11am checkout. We then went to the outlets at Daytona. This was our main reason for even wanting to stay in Daytona. They were really nice stores and I found a few Vera Bradley items (toiletries and cosmetics bags for traveling) The outlets look brand new and were beautiful. Once we were done shopping, we starting the hour drive back to Orlando!