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St. Augustine 2024 Day 1

Wednesday 03 July 2024

Morning

The shells on the beach just at the edge of the surf were visible for only a few moments before the white bubbles and turbulence hid them again.

In the brief time I could clearly see them in the shallow water, it was obvious most of the shells were only fragments, often smaller than the smallest coins, slivers well on their way to becoming grains of sand. Every now and then, a shard would catch my eye, and I would think, “I might try to grab that one” just before incoming wave hid them once again.

By then it was too late: once the water cleared up, the tide would have tkane the shard so far away from its original position that finding it was all but impossible. Another might catch my eye, but then the process would simply repeat itself.

To get a shell required calm and patience followed by a paradoxical ability to move quickly when needed. Hesitation meant the loss of the moment. In some ways, that’s a metaphor for live in general for many people. Everything is about getting the right moment, and when that fails, increased stress is the outcome.

Yet the older I get, the more I realize the error in living like that and the unnecessary stress it causes. Yes, I might not get that exact shell that I wanted, but there were plenty of other shells that were just as lovely, often more so.

Evening

In the evening, after we'd spent a few hours back at the Airbnb, after we'd spent some time downtown and had dinner, we headed back to the beach.

I took a few pictures:

and the Boy took a few pictures:

A short walk to end a lovely day.

And we got home, and I saw the fantastic news from the Tour de France: Mark Cavendish got his record-breaking 35th stage win, assuring him the historic title "The Greatest Sprinter of All Time!"

Almost as enjoyable as watching the win itself was seeing the other riders' reaction to the amazing win.

Previous First Day

St. Augustine, Day 1

Tampa to St. Augustine via Gainesville

Tuesday 02 July 2024

We left our lovely hotel room with an incredible view to head to St. Augustine for the second half of our Florida vacation. It's the second time we've been to St. Augustine as a family, the third time for the kids and me. That is to say, we really like St. Augustine.

Along the way, we made perhaps the most important stop of the whole week: a few hours in Gainesville. What's so special about Gainesville? Well, it has a fantastic Korean restaurant, as we discovered for lunch. And rocker Tom Petty is a Gainesville native. But neither of those was the real reason we went to Gainesville. Our primary motivation has to do with our daughter, who is going to college in about a year. Going to college in about a year. Her number one choice of colleges: University of Florida, which is located in -- guess -- Gainesville. She wants to study bio-engineering, and Florida University has one of the best programs in the nation for that.

So we stopped by for a tour of the university. I tried not to talk too much or take too many pictures. The Girl remained relatively quiet during the tour. But we came away with a positive impression: the parents are happy with some of the safety programs the university implements; the Girl is happy with the college as a whole, especially one of the enormous chemistry labs we got to take a peek at.

Afterward, we headed to St. Augustine and our lovely Airbnb spot: a bungalow in an absolutely beautiful part of town. Walk to the end of the street, and this is the street we see:

Yes, that's a peacock taking a stroll down a Live-Oak-lined street. It's positively bajkowy.

Lovely houses as well. And the peacock? They're from Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park, an ethnographic museum literally at the end of our street.

We weren't planning on visiting any real attractions while in St. Augustine, but since it's just down the road, we're thinking we might. We'll definitely visit the Cuban coffee cafe down the street.

A games night rounded out our evening: our Airbnb has several entertainment options, including a ping pong table. Poor K gets knocked around in board games, card games, and our front-yard badminton games, but she really knows how to play ping pong.