I Drank The Water And Feel Younger Already

St. Augustine  

On occasion we do wake up in the middle of the night and either not know where we are or cannot make sense of what we see out our ports. Today's recap starts in the wee hours of the morning with one of those moments. At 4:30 I got out of bed and looked through the starboard port and spotted Santa Claus taking flight from a nearby rooftop. Rudolph's nose was glowing as expected, but the time and place conundrum had me shaking my head. Christmas just seems so far distant in the past. I went back to sleep while contemplating how quickly time flies. And then, in a blink, it was 7:00 and the scene out the port beckoned me to the pilothouse to watch the dawn's colors. To the west, the sky was a pinky purple. To the east, the lighthouse was silhouetted against a spread of orange. The beautiful morning energized me to get my yoga and shower done so we could hop in the dinghy and get into town to walk around. The bright white Cathedral of St. Augustine popped against the bright blue sky.  

We walked around for half an hour and made our way to Harry's for lunch with Deltaville friends, Linda and Bill. They spend winters here in their RV and it was great to catch up over a delicious meal. Barry's mahi sandwich was quite impressive. We all walked through town a bit before saying farewell. Barry and I continued to the visitor center where we learned St. Augustine is 42 years older than Jamestown. While inside, we looked at all the brochures and displays trying to come up with a destination for the afternoon. The Medieval Torture Museum sounded intriguing, but since it was a perfect day for walking and neither one of us had ever been in all our many trips to St. Augustine, we decided to visit the Fountain of Youth. The final stretch of our walk was under the canopy of live oaks dripping with Spanish moss.

We had some fun with the historical props, and Barry navigated our way through the park. Chief Saturiwa sprung out of the foliage. The statue of Juan Ponce de Leon claimed the spot of honor in the middle of the sidewalk. We were observers of unscripted excitement when we came upon staffers putting out a fire in the Historic Firearms exhibit. The thatched roof was a loss, but the structure seemed to survive. A large totem honored the importance of owls in early myths and religion.

We made our way in to the Spring House for the real attraction. A brightly colored diorama recreated Ponce de Leon's amazing discovery of the Fountain of Youth. Our discovery was somewhat underwhelming. We descended a few steps and removed a paper Dixie cup from the dispenser. From there we went to the "fountain" where three continuously flowing streams trickled via a pump into a gravel basin. When our cups runneth over, we proceeded to drink the water. For $18 a ticket, there should have at least been custom printed paper cups saying, "I drank the water and feel younger already." (That slogan adorned shirts, magnets, stickers, and countless more tchotchkes in the gift shop.)

For me, the stars of the park were the peafowl, more specifically the peacocks, that roamed free around the grounds with their peahens. The brilliant blues and greens cannot be adequately captured with my phone. In the bright sun, their feathers shimmered like glass. It was a treat to see a few males fan and rattle their train (tail feathers) to impress the females. We came, we saw, and checked off this spot from our Bucket List. On the way back to the marina we passed the Old City Gates. These two ancient columns made of stone were built in 1808 as a line of defense for the city. A short distance away, the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument is the oldest masonry fortification in the continental United States. We had visited this attraction on a previous trip and just observed from outside the ticket booth. Today, we enjoyed a wonderful lunch visit and a nice long walk in sunshine and warmth. That combined with our magical water had us feeling younger already.