Here are a few notes from our recent trip to Saint Augustine, FL:
- Midway is my least favorite airport ever. We try our best to avoid it, but this time it was the only place we could get a direct flight to Jacksonville.
- We parked in the economy parking lot, which, we discovered, isn't even paved. It's just a gravel lot. And costs $15/day.
- It took 40 minutes to check our bags in the "Express" bag-check lane.
- When we arrived at our rental house in Florida, there was a black cat sitting in the driveway. I took it as an auspicious sign. Any superstitions I had about black cats are long gone, thanks to Gordon.
- A lot of houses near our rental house had rooftop porches, so they could have a good view of the ocean. The house right next to ours also had a personal weather station on their roof. Now I'm starting to think I should get another weather station. I had one for a few years, but it eventually stopped working.
- One night during our visit, there were a bunch of reports of a fireball and a loud, window-rattling boom over North Florida. Some people in Saint Augustine saw it, but unfortunately we did not see or hear it. A security camera captured a video of it.
- We had two days of perfect weather: sunny and mid-70s. It cooled off after that.
- The view from our rental house was fantastic.
- The sound of the ocean was also fantastic.
- The corn cakes at Mango Mango's were delicious.
- The Mexican UFOs at the Burrito Works Taco Shop were delicious.
- The ice cream at Coneheads was delicious.
- We bought some girl scout cookies when we stopped at a Walgreens. Tagalongs and samoas are my fave.
- I enjoyed the Alligator Farm much more than I thought I would. There were so many crocodiles and alligators. The albino alligator was really cool, but Maximo was the main attraction. He is a 15-foot 1,250-pound crocodile.
- We walked up 219 steps (14 stories) to the top of a lighthouse. The views were great, but my calves were sore the next day.
- We went to Fort Castillo de San Marcos. It was built in the late 1600's out of coquina, which is a type of rock made up entirely of sea shells. Apparently it is strong enough to build a fort out of it, but soft enough that cannon balls would sink into the stone rather than shatter it.
- Our flight home was delayed almost 4 hours due to congestion at Midway.
- Driving home from Midway was a mess because we hit rush hour traffic. Our phone's GPS navigated us through a labyrinthine route of side roads to avoid the standstill traffic on the highway.
- When we got home, Gordon poked his head out of the upstairs bathroom, meowed twice, and then came down to greet us. Later we noticed there was a big pile of cat hair on our bed, right below my pillow, where he must have slept. I took it as a sign he missed me.
- The temp got down to -6 the first night we were home, and -10 the second night, which set a new record low for that day (the previous record was 0).
There's a lot more I could come up with, but I'll stop there.