What I did today

St Augustine, FL

I said in an earlier post that Gainesville isn't really near much...and it's not.  But, it's only 1.5 hours away from the nearest beach in St. Augustine.
This was my first time ever going to the Atlantic Ocean.  I've been to the West Coast a bunch and I lived in the South Pacific.  But, I've never been to the Atlantic, so I was excited about my first visit.

A couple thoughts:

1) The ocean kinda creeps up on you.  One second you're driving down a normal southern highway with all the dense vegetation blocking your view and then BOOM there's the ocean.  California basically just drops off into the Pacific, so you see it coming and can get a real sense of just how big it actually is.  Here, because the land is so flat, the ocean just didn't seem quite as vast or majestic.  Don't get me wrong, still beautiful, just not so...big.

2) The water was quite warm.  The couple times that I've actually been in the Pacific, I remember it being really cold.  So, it was nice to get in the water and enjoy it.

 

This is where I ate lunch.  It had good ratings on Urbanspoon and it was (supposedly) right on the beach.  The food was alright.  I had some fried shrimp and clam chowder.  The clam chowder (Manhattan style) was much better than the shrimp, but I wasn't disappointed with either.

What I was disappointed with, though, was the location.  Yeah, it's really, really close to the beach, but you can't even see the ocean because of the stupid sand dunes.  The water is just over the dunes behind the yellow and blue umbrellas.  I was all set to have a meal with and ocean view.  Oh well, it still had a cool vibe.

On my way home, I stopped in the town of Palatka because it was just too picturesque not to.  Palatka sits on the St. Johns River and has that frozen in time feel that you get in a lot of Midwest towns.  I took a few minutes and hung out in a waterfront park.  It was a really peaceful place.

Then, on my way out of town, I saw this amazing cemetery and had to stop there too.  Strange?  Yeah, probably, but it was beautiful.  It's probably been there for more than a hundred years.  There were some newer headstones, but most of them were old and weathered.  The road wasn't even paved.  It was just a couple tire ruts weaving among the graves.  I fell in love with the air of history that surrounded the place.  I wish I had stayed there longer and taken the time to get out and explore. 

I kinda want to live here.

 And lastly, the fruits of today's labors...

It's not so bad.  What really hurt are my feet!

OUCH!