Oldest City

Currently In:  Kissimmee, FL
We will be in Florida until mid January

What I found out in St. Augustine, other than it is the oldest continuously inhabited European settled city in North America, is that it rivals Savannah for tourism.  Granted we were there during a holiday weekend, but jeesh!  There were people everywhere.  But we were able to still do a bunch of fun stuff.

In this post I am going to share what we saw of nature and some other general fun that we had.  In my next post I will share some historical things we learned.  Let me start the fun post this way.

Here is one of my favorite views from the walk along the Matanzas River which borders St. Augustine.

We went to Anastasia State Park for a nature walk.  It had been a long time since we hiked! After a walk along the beach, which looks like many of the other beaches in Florida, we went for a walk on a trail through the park.   We saw a lot more tropical foliage, although you can't see much in this photo on the left.   I thought the bark on the slash pine tree (photo on right) was really cool.

We were also able to visit an alligator farm near St. Augustine Beach.  They house all 24 known  species of alligators and crocodiles.

Albino Alligator

 There were about 100 alligators in the area call "the swamp".  Yikes!

Johnny was able to wrestle him a large alligator!  He needed a little courage from the beer, though.

After all that excitement, we needed to relax...

San Sabastian Wine Tour

From Thanksgiving until after the New Year, St. Augustine celebrates the "Nights of Lights".  All of the businesses in the historical downtown put up white Christmas lights, so the whole town looks festive.  It's very pretty.

Even Santa makes an appearance.

And no Christmas light viewing would be complete without bagpipes - what???

Here is our campground's version of Nights of Lights.  Actually, they had an event for all guests to join - live band in the pavilion and a campfire.   Lots of folks dancing.  Our neighbor said it was the camping version of "clubbing"!