life in the campground at St Augustine

Our campground is at North Beach on the Atlantic - just about 3 miles from the famous Fountain of Youth.  It's an older campground, cut from a palmetto jungle.  The result is that the campsites are very private.  We sit on a barrier island with the Atlantic on one side, and the inlet on the other.  It's really quite special as far as RV campgrounds go!

We arrived here on February 1st and this is our first morning on the Beach... Groundhog's Day, Candlemas, Imbolc, Bridget's Fest..... whatever!  Sorry, but we really don't care about 6 more weeks of winter if this is what winter looks like!

The Bridge of Lions

The oldest bridge is know as the Bridge of Lions, which carries you over the inlet, and onto Anastasia Island (where the State Park with the huge, sand dune beach is located).  It's considered lucky to have your pictures taken with the Lions.... so of course we did!

Behind us, in the old town marina, is this replica of a pirate ship that cruises the inlet periodically, staging pirate  invasions at various places & firing their guns to amuse the tourists.  Last New Years we were here, and this ship "attacked" our campground docks.  After a heated battle with the local pirate police, they retreated - all the while singing "what do you do with a drunken sailor"  It was an experience.

The Fort - Castillo de San Marcos

St Augustine is famous for this very early Spanish fort - in amazing condition considering the amount of action it endured while fending off the British.  The views are amazing.

I was especially fascinated by the ornamentation on the big guns - beautiful sea serpents and this amazing "green man" or "foliate man"  (see the leaves sprouting between his eyes)

 this fish was a positioning handle, but the greenman was simply an ornamentation, serving no real purpose.

early morning walks in St. Augustine - the old town

We love to wander the back alleys of St. Augustine early in the morning - you never know what treasures will be hiding behind the next gate, or garden wall.  The camellias and azelea are in bloom, but we also found bougenvilla in every color, datura, coreopsis, redbud, lantana, pointsetta  and hibiscus and more.  The tiny private gardens are amazing!

this little guy could have been Ivan's twin!  He was a B&B cat.