Fall 2024 Florida trip

[DonnaR57]

We (husband and I) just got back from a 12-day trip back to Florida. This was the trip we promised ourselves, to return to Saint Augustine to explore it further. On the return trip, we stopped to explore a few other places that had been on our "must check out" list. Over the next day or so, I will post portions of our trip logs.

DAYS 1 THROUGH 3 - These were driving days, only to get where we were going. On Day 1, we drove from our home to just outside of Fort Campbell, KY (southern part on the TN state line). We used I-44/270/255/64/57/24. Thanks to points, our first night's lodging was free. We went onto the Army base for dinner.

Day 2 was not our favorite. We had to traverse 3 cities, using I-24 and I-75. First was Nashville, which really wasn't a traffic issue since it was a Sunday. Second was Chattanooga. That was NOT fun, because TN DOT was working on the intersection of I-24 and I-75 which backed up traffic for several miles. But the worst was Atlanta. DESPITE it being a Sunday, it took us forever to cross from Marrietta through Atlanta into the southern suburbs. Our SunPass would have been helpful, but the Express Lanes were closed. We used the HOV lanes whenever we could. The most aggravating thing? Near ATL airport, there were 5 southbound lanes that were forced to merge into 1 southbound lane, which was done one lane at a time. Who on earth thought THAT was a great idea, even on a Sunday??!?!?! We were grateful to arrive in Locust Grove at our second night, and to get a good dinner.

Day 3 - This was an easy day compared to the day before. We drove from Locust Grove to Saint Augustine. When we came into JAX, we had to call our lodging in StAug, to ensure we could arrive before Check In time. The response? "Come on in!" We were settled pretty quickly, once in. To stay in the historic downtown area is more expensive, but you don't have to fight parking since you just leave your car at the hotel (which isn't free parking). Once our road trip vehicle got parked that day, it did not move until we left on Day 8.


Donna

[DonnaR57]

Don't we just love it when the DOT wants 5 lanes to merge into 1?

Day 2-12

A beautiful tree, up close:

Day 3-2

Nickajack Lake, TN:

Day 2-5

The view from the upper deck of our lodging place:

Day 5-24

[DonnaR57]

DAY 4 - ST AUGUSTINE HISTORY

We began the morning on the upper deck of our lodging, Best Western Bayfront. Some rooms had bay view, but we chose not to get one because of the expense and because you could easily go up to the upper deck, located above the entrance. They had a lounge set and some tall tables and chairs. We were up there with our coffee before sunrise, and caught the sunrise on photo.

Day 4-4A

Breakfast at this lodge was by coupon for the cafe next door, Mary's, which had been in business for more than 30 years. Lodgers had 3 choices. The only thing we had to pay for was the tip, or if you wanted to order from the menu instead.

St George Street is a historic street in St Augustine, but it is now full of lots of little shops. We did a little shopping, then went back to the room for a bit. Lunch took us back to St George Street, to a place called St Augustine Seafood. Really cute and good food.

We walked up to a used bookstore, off the beaten track, another one that has been there for 20+ years. When you're a reader, it's so hard to resist a good used bookstore! Don't look for this one online, she said they are not online and have no plans to get that way. After a quick snack, we headed out for the Cathedral. We had headed that way in the morning, but the Cathedral of St Augustine is still a very active Catholic church, and a funeral was in progress. This is one of the oldest churches that still survives in St Augustine.

Day 4-11A

The ceiling of the Cathedral fascinated me:

Day 4-13A

We walked across the street to the Governor's House, now an art gallery full of paintings that were beautiful.

Day 4-17A

We had dinner and dessert at Casa Reina, the Queen's House, at the corner of Avenida Melendez and the Bridge of Lions. The food was delicious! Normally we do not eat dessert, but the Tres Leche caught our attention. We shared it.

[AZBuck]

Places in America named for locations in the 'old country' often have pronunciations that are different from their namesakes. For example, it's muh-DRID Spain but New MAD-rid Missouri; or KY-row Egypt but KAY-row Illinois. So my question is this: Do the locals (or the parishioners especially) pronounce it Saint AUG-us-teen or Saint au-GUS-tin? In either case, it's still on my bucket list, as your images and commentary remind me.

AZBuck

[Mark Sedenquist]

Unrelated to Buck's query -- at one time, we were going to create a pronouncing gazetteer on the web highlighting how geographic features are pronounced by the locals. One of my favorites is PEE-Roo, Indiana (Peru, IN.)

Mark

[DonnaR57]

To answer the above questions, everyone seemed to pronounce it "Saint AU-gus-teen." (Though I'd hear San-ah-GUS-tin periodically.) My favorite of the pronunciation changes is in Versailles. The French way, of course, is Ver-SIGH. In MO, though, it's Ver-sales, like you're going shopping. Also, we learned something on this trip: it's Val-DAH-stah, GA, not Val-DOH-stah.

DAY 5 - BRIDGE OF LIONS AND MORE

Up at the normal time, but due to the huge meal and dessert from the night before, we did not go to breakfast at Mary's. Instead, after coffee, we decided to do some more walking. We walked up Avenida Melendez to the Bridge of Lions, which goes over the Matanzas River to Anastasia Island, and back. The Bridge of Lions is a drawbridge, which we were able to see in action a couple of times during our stay, but fortunately for us, not while we were walking it.

The Bridge of Lions, as we saw it that morning:

Day 5-1A

There are 4 of these statues to designate the Bridge:

Day 5-4A

Pedestrian View:

Day 5-6A

View from the Bridge out to the River:

Day 5-8A

Another of the 4 Lions:

Day 5-10A

Drawbridge control tower:

Day 5-7A

After the Bridge, we set out on King Street to Cordova to St. Francis Street, then back to Avenida Melendez to our lodging -- all before 11 am.

Big museum:

Day 5-19A

One building has seen several lives. Anyone remember this store brand? Of course that's not what's in there now, but it brought back memories:

Day 5-17A

The city's tribute to its founder, Ponce de Leon:

Day 5-23A

The rest of the day? We rested, used the outdoor pool (pleasant!), went back up to St George Street to do more shopping, then went to dinner at River & Fort Restaurant next door. The weather was showing rain in sight (no, not Helene, yet) so we didn't want to go far. We were barely back in the room when it began to rain, with thunder.

[DonnaR57]

DAY 6 - HURRICANE? TROPICAL STORM? PREPPING FOR HELENE!

Our sixth day was mostly spent doing as much relaxing as we could. We debated whether we should leave and try to outrun Helene, but all indications were that it was going to be a Tropical Storm as Helene was headed for the Panhandle. Getting out of St Augustine would just mean we'd be going in the same direction as others trying to flee.

Instead, we tried to relax and have a mostly "down day". We watched the lodge's staff move outdoor furniture, planters (already on wheels) and more into an unused room or into an area protected from the wind. Bear in mind this was mid-week (Thursday) so their parking lot wasn't really full. There were four parking places usually blocked with cones that said "Pick up trucks only" or "staff parking", and for those, they merely laid the cone down until a pick-up truck needed the spot.

We took umbrellas and walked back to St George Street, needing the umbrellas only at one point. Later in the afternoon, we enjoyed "Meehan's Backyard" which is an outdoor area where they mostly serve liquor and snacks. I had a Key Lime Pie which was better than the one I'd had 5 months before in the Keys.

Meehan's was dinner again, since we knew we wanted to go back for dinner before we left town. They too were preparing for the wind by putting outdoor furniture in a better place, and they eventually took down two hanging signs in front (but they restored them by Friday at 11 am.).

There are no photos from this day.

During the night, sure enough, the wind picked up. It was very, very gusty, but we felt safe in the room. Our power stayed on -- lodge staff had warned us that a loss of power (i.e. no A/C) would be possible, but they didn't expect high waters. Water did raise a little in the River, but did not overflow its banks. One wind gust caused a metallic clatter outside our room. It wasn't until morning that we found it between our car and the fence between the parking lot and the sidewalk in front of our room. It was a metal base to a round planter that had not gotten moved, from upstairs of us. We were grateful that it did not hit our car as it would have done some damage.

[Mark Sedenquist]

Donna,

Yes, it seems that you very lucky that the hurricane veered away from that section of the Florida coast.

Enjoying the report.

Mark

[DonnaR57]

DAY 7 - Last Day in St Augustine

Early in the morning, we looked at the things we'd done in St Augustine, decided to catch up on anything we missed that we really wanted to do, and set out to do just that.

We took a 3/4 mile walk (one-way) up Kings Street to the San Sebastian Winery. Though the Winery had parking, we figured we could temper our spending if we had to carry anything back to the room. They have a "tasting tour" which allows you to taste 8 different wines. In the end, we bought 4, which we could carry back in a box made for such things.

On the way up to the Winery, we passed Flagler College (formerly Hotel Ponce de Leon):

Day 7-1A

Day 7-2A

We also passed some homes that had prepared for the storm. One was puzzling to us.

Day 7-8

It was very warm and very humid, thanks to Tropical Storm Helene, so when we got back, we were grateful for electricity and the air conditioned room.

We'd found this little "hole in the wall" that looked like it had good food, so that's where we went for lunch. DJ's Clam Shack wasn't far from our lodging but they had closed early on Thursday, to allow employees to head home safely. (A lot of businesses had done that.). The food was, indeed, very good. My husband enjoyed his fried clams and clam chowder. As for me, I don't eat shellfish, so I had onion rings and a salad.

The boats started back now that the storm was over.

DAY 7-12A

Even the drawbridge got used that day:

Day 7-10A

We came to the conclusion that St Augustine must get busy on weekends in the fall and "off season", as by 9 pm, their lot was full! So full, we hoped that someone wouldn't come in later and block us in, as we had intentions of being out before dawn the next day.

[DonnaR57]

Day 8 - TRAVEL, ST AUGUSTINE TO CHATTANOOGA TN

Long before dawn, we were awake, had the vehicle packed, travel coffee mugs ready, and took off before 6 am. It was still dark, but you could see the hint of light off to the east as we traversed Jacksonville's I-295 to the west of town. We debated whether or not to get fuel in JAX or wait until Georgia where prices were lower, opting for Georgia since we were only down to 3/4 tank. Mistake, that's for sure.

Along the way, hubby wanted to know where we were stopping for breakfast. By this time, we were already through JAX, westbound on I-10. There wasn't much to offer except a Huddle House, which he declined. Mistake #2. Instead, we were headed for a Cracker Barrel at exit 5 in Georgia.

It was easy to see the issue there, right away. NONE of the truck stops' signs were lit up, no vehicles were at pumps: NO POWER. So we moved on, headed for fuel.

Pulled into Valdosta, GA's Sam's Club and this is what greeted us:

Day 8-5A

Sam's Club was one of the few places in Valdosta that had power "the normal way", where everyone else that had power was using generators. The photo shows how it was when we got in line, but the line kept getting longer and longer, and people were not just filling their car's tanks, they were also filling spare jugs for generator fuel. The line we were in only had one pump, and as we pulled up to be the next to fill, the card of the girl in front of us froze the pump. They still could not get it working, 15 minutes later, and when the manager heard our predicament, she got us moved to the front of the line on the next pump over. We lost 50 minutes there, plus more time trying to get back on the freeway as the traffic lights weren't working and there weren't any traffic policemen out there.

All along the route, we saw power outages (until Tifton, GA), downed trees, and billboards that were torn apart. We looked for another breakfast place, and found an open Cracker Barrel. But they had a 30-45 minute wait just to get seated, so we moved on, finally taking brunch at a fast-food place around 11 am.

Downed billboard in this photo:

Day 8-3A

Atlanta traffic was easier - maybe fewer people out because the storm had moved through there. We were able to use the Express Lanes this time, which helped us a lot. Then the HOV lanes. We didn't really see "heavy" traffic until Marrieta.

Day 8-8A

We finally got to Tennessee around 3:30, and into the traffic snarl caused by the new intersection of I-24 and I-75 that's being built. Some day it might make that intersection smoother, but not at any time during our stay in Chattanooga. It was a bear to deal with, so we tried to find ways around if we could reasonably do so during our 3-night, 2-day stay.

Our lodging was another Best Western. We've been trying to build up points with BW for several reasons, and by the end of the trip, we had enough points for 2 free nights (we hope). We chose this one for its proximity to Lookout Mountain, and because it had laundry facilities. (The previous one did not.)

Up the hill from the lodge was a Logan's Roadhouse, which we'd never tried. So that was dinner. Similar in concept to a Texas Roadhouse (which we like), the food was fine but TR's rolls are better.