St. Augustine
I’m a week late in talking about my trip to St. Augustine, but better late than never, right? Basically the trip was bittersweet, as expected.
After a chill night at home on Friday (still recovering from birthday festivities the night before), I got up early on Saturday morning and made the 90-minute drive along back roads through Florida to St. Augustine. Unfortunately there are no straight highway routes, but I did get to see some more of Florida’s interior. There are lots of churches and fresh fruit/vegetable stands along state’s back roads.
While I was on the road, I called and booked a night at the Casa Yallaha hostel, so when I got into the city, I went to check in and drop off my stuff. The hostel was a very large house in the historic district of St. Augustine and the other guests were really nice and pretty talkative. The owner was also nice but a bit off-putting. When he asked what I did, and I said I worked for the NYT Editing Center in Gainesville, he said that I shouldn’t work for a trashy rag like that. Instead I should work for Fox where all the smart and beautiful female journalists were. I couldn’t decide if he was hitting on me or simply insulting my work, but either way I felt a bit awkward.
Anyway, I made my bed, dropped off my stuff and headed over a few miles farther east to St. Augustine Beach on Anastasia Island. I spent the entire afternoon there (going through nearly an entire bottle of sunscreen in the process). I read, listened to music and generally did nothing for a while.
For some reason, I kept fidgeting and had this nervous energy coursing through my veins, so after grabbing a yummy organic wrap at a local surf shop called Stir It Up for lunch, I decided to pull my bike off the back of my car. I had brought it in case I found a good trail or wanted to bike through the historic district, but once I saw that people were able to bike on the beach, I decided to follow suit. I ended up biking for miles south along the coast. It was perfectly flat, so I probably could’ve gone on forever without getting tired, but after a while I decided to turn back so I knew it wouldn’t get dark before I got back.
Then I spent the last bit of sun in the water where I got side-swiped by a dolphin, nearly stepped on a crab that popped out of the sand by my feet and ended up talking with a carny—a real live carnival worker from Tennessee with the strongest accent I’ve ever heard. I forget her name, but she regaled me with tales of her and her husband’s time with the carnival and tried to convince me to join the circus for a few months at some point in my life.
Finally, I headed back to the hostel for a shower before finding a restaurant for dinner. I ended up at Harry’s, a great seafood grill that was recommended to me by the hostel owner. I generally hate eating alone and initially felt super awkward about it, but they sat me on this little isolated balcony on the second floor where I had the perfect view of the water and the downtown scene. I watched the sky darken over the water as the sun set with a perfect plate of mussels and my copy of Eat Pray Love to keep me company (a particularly appropriate book for the setting).
After dinner I walked along the water to the Castillo de San Marcos, a Spanish fortress from the 1600s that sits at the water’s edge, built to defend the city. It was a gorgeous, cool night, and I could see all the stars, so I kept walking around the historic downtown. The only thing marring the evening was a slight blanket of melancholy that followed me as I was surrounded by vacationing couples and laughing groups and the usual unfortunate creepers that tend to take note of a girl out by herself.
By midnight I knew I should get to bed or risk putting myself in an unsafe situation and headed back to the hostel to get some sleep. I woke up several times (the bed was a foot shorter than me) and finally decided to just get out of bed at about 8:30 a.m. After enjoying a bit of breakfast on the porch surrounded by lizards, chirping birds and already serious humidity, I went back to the Castillo de San Marcos to explore the interior of the fortress, take a tour and watch re-enactors shoot the cannon into the harbor. I learned a few things about Florida history; for example, who knew there were actually FIFTEEN original colonies? I guess the song got it wrong, haha.
Anyway, after spending the entire morning there, I was dying from the heat and dehydration and went back to beach to cool off. I considered renting an ocean kayak but decided to save that for my next trip and just instead spend the afternoon relaxing some more.
After some more swimming, biking and relaxing, the evening was already upon me. Early evening is by far my favorite time at the beach. It’s a bit hard to articulate why, but I’m going to try anyway. The sun starts to go down. The loud families start to leave with kids crying for “one more wave!” The teens just trying to work on their tans disappear. The sun stops being so hot, the water so cold. The sandcastles melt into the wet sand. The cute old couples start walking along the surf with rolled up pants. The waves become the loudest sound. The smell of salt rolls in with the tide.
To me, this is the idyllic beach so often described in poetry and novels come to life. This is the beach that reminds me of barefooted evening walks with my family in Europe in cold sand and even colder water. This is the beach that I first experienced as a toddler with my family—when, according to my family’s memory, I waddled straight into the water (still clothed).
So with one last walk along the water, I finally tore myself away and began my drive through the dark back to Gainesville.
