St. AUGUSTINE, FL

We love St. Augustine. We really, really do. From the moment we discovered this very cool city quite by accident a few years ago and could only spend a couple of days here we knew that the appeal of this city would bring us back. And that it did. Two years ago we rented a house on Anastasia Island where we spent a month ensconced in the St. Augustine way of life. We did lots of walks through the old town, visited Fort Mantanzas, took the trolley tour (a perfect way to see any new city), took long walks with the dogs on the beaches of St. Augustine and, of course, did a wine tasting at the local winery.

Beach Shoes. I'm in Blue.

  
This time around we are in the fifth wheel at an RV resort on Vilano Beach, a peninsula just north of St. Augustine and accessible to St. Augustine via the Francis and Mary Usina Bridge - a five minute drive at most. Vilano Beach is unincorporated and has a small population of about 2,500+/- with most homes being on the ocean or within a two minute walk. It is separated from St. Augustine by the Tolomato River so water is always a short walk away for fishing or walking or just sitting in the sun. The beach on the Atlantic side is pretty wide when the tide is out and great for Erik and I to walk the dogs which we do a couple of times each day. We even bought 'beach' shoes for these excursions.

In addition to the many, many seagulls that circle around the beach (especially during low tide) and the pelicans that are constantly diving for food we see Sandpipers. These little birds run out with the surf looking for food and run back when the surf comes back in just in front of the water. Rarely do I see them actually get their skinny little legs wet. The larger of the two species of Sandpiper takes to the air when we intrude upon their space and squeal as they fly over the water and back again onto the shore. The smaller of the two that we see doesn't seem to be as bothered by our intrusion, they simply run a little faster on their skinny little legs away from us.  

Having tried to actually find the name of these two different species of Sandpiper I have only been able to find some pictures of Sandpipers that seem to be the ones we see. Both of the pictures I have posted here are as close to the birds we see on the beach.

We did the tourist thing and started to pick up starfish and other interesting shells that we found along these walks. I imagined a beautiful collection of intriguing shells, starfish, and other beach findings stunningly displayed in a glass container that showed them off to perfection. I considered myself really lucky to have found a purple starfish. I considered myself lucky because I have not seen another one since I picked that one up our first day here. Sadly, Kaede liked the look of the dried up purple starfish and decided the crunchy texture was to her liking and ate it. 

One of the things we really enjoy about St. Augustine is this: it's a dog friendly town. Most restaurants that offer patio dining allow dogs on the patio if you don't need to go through the main restaurant to get to the patio. The servers fawn over the dogs, stroke them, bring them fresh drinking water and tell us tales of the exploits of their dogs. That is something that is important to us. Without these dog friendly restaurants we would never get out for nice leisurely lunches where we can sit and watch the world go by.

Kingfish Grill at the base of the Francis and Mary Usina Bridge on St. Augustine side.

The view of the river and some of the boats.

Pretty nice to look at as you sip on beer/wine and enjoy your lunch.

The bridge to Vilano Beach. We are staying to the left of the bridge on the other side about 5 minutes north.

Erik anticipating his beer and grits with grilled shrimp. Yup. We've gone southern.

Me and the pups waiting for lunch. Can you think of a nicer place to sit and relax while having lunch?

It's not all eating really delicious food and sipping wine and beer. Absolutely not. St. Augustine is the oldest city in the United States with an incredible amount of history within its walls. There is an abundance of sight-seeing, there is fishing, I have been lucky enough to join a tennis club for the month that we will be here and sand maintenance takes up at least a half an hour daily. Then there are the mediocre day to day tasks that we all do, whether we are at home or on vacation. Laundry. The RV Resorts (so far) have all had a laundry room with industrial sized washers and dryers and shower facilities for those campers who do not have showers or choose not to use their own.

We've noticed that lots of RVers decorate their own personal little space with lights, signs with their name and hometown, time that cocktails are served and flags. We had nothing like this, of course, never having been 'campers' so let me tell you we were pretty happy when some friends presented us with our own lights (little mugs of beer). It's not of the same proportions of other light shows we've seen but in its own way it makes us feel like we're in the know about decorating and, therefore, seasoned RVers.