June 17, Day two

After  a decent’s night sleep, the day started quite nicely.  No alarm clock!!! :D

We headed down  to the breakfast bar, which was quite nice.  There were small glass bowls in the tables with white pebbles (which Livvy said looked like mentos) and roses.  Nice touch.  Good breakfast! They even had peanut butter for the Belgium waffles….  They are a okay in my book!

We still hadn’t heard from our friends, felt sad, but figured maybe in a bit.  I had Tom to get onto facebook and send messages.  After having called them the previous night, didn’t want to over push the issue.

We drove down to St. Augustine, Florida.  This is one of my favorite city in Florida. It is unique in its beauty.  On the way found out Tom had never visited the old city nor the Castillo de San Marcos!  I remember doing this when I was about Olivia’s age!!! Tom is such a history buff so I concluded, let’s do it!

We delighted Olivia by taking the horse carriage ride thru the old city.  That takes about an hour.  We took the historic tour, which I knew Tom would like and Olivia didn’t care, she just wanted to take a horse carriage ride.  J 

We visited the Castillo, which had updated a lot since I had been there, lol.  (of course).  They now have a small movie theatre in there showing info about the castle.  Very cool.

After a couple hours playing tourist, which was grand fun, we grabbed lunch and journeyed to the beach. 

If you have never been to St. Augustine beaches, the cool thing is you can drive on them.  This is why I like the beach here so well, it is hard packed.  The water is certainly not as pretty as the Gulf side, but I love that hard packed sand! 

I understand several years ago a woman was killed by being run over by a car.  Sad.  But after having been here many times, I could see how that could happen.

We played in the ocean, holding hands, the three of us. Jumping waves….the waves were quite rough.  Surf was UP!  Some of the swells were over our heads.  I helped Olivia to hang onto her boogie board and keep it under her and we rode over the waves together.  Quite a tiring adventure. 

After a time, we headed back to the shore where my back complained a bit.  I listened to it. What do I tell my clients but to listen to their bodies?  I did the same.

Olivia played in the sand a bit, then in the shallow waters.  It was delightful to see her frolic about!  J

Tom took her out once more time, but she tired quickly this time.  Those waves were no joke !

It was now time to head back to Jacksonville.  We still had no messages from our friends.  Tom even said maybe its my phone, maybe the messages will be on facebook when we get back. 

After hot showers and fresh clothes, we felt human again.  Love the ocean, but that sticky water and sand makes one feel so dirty and gritty!

Sadly, no messages, so we opted to go to dinner by ourselves, feeling very sad and let down.  We went to one of our old haunts, Gators Dockside so we could have and Olivia could try some Gator tail.  Unfortunately, the experience was terrible!  Tom ordered a simple philly cheese steak, I ordered a salad, and Olivia mac n cheese and apple slices.  (Gator tail was the appetizer)  It took well over an hour before our food arrived.  In fact, we were demanding our check, ready to walk out.  The manager came to us, had no excuse, except a large party of 35 was there and took our bill down by 50%.  I think the only reason we stayed it was now 8 p.m. and any where else we would have had to wait as well. 

The food was delicious, well prepared, but we were so disappointed by the lousy service.  Tom , and I agreed to a point, felt we shouldn’t have to pay for anything, but after rethinking, he did have to pay his staff .  And we took care of our server.  This wasn’t her fault, but she had to face us when we kept inquiring about our food ….  But I did tell him, years ago we used to come up here and eat, good food, good service. Tonight, you let us down.

Anyway, from there, we hit walmart.  Tom bought me a new swim suit.  We had to compromise a bit, a two piece.  I needed a bottom to “hide” the bottom half of me I am not fond of, but a skimpier top to show off my top half which is still decent, thanks to plastic surgery!  J

Back to the hotel.  After picking up and getting things in order, Tom’s phone was giving an odd message (still).  I said reboot the thing and guess what. We felt like heels, our friends had called 5x that day!  Now WHY they didn’t call my phone any or facebook us I do not know, but at least we knew we weren’t being blown off! 

Now we were sad that we didn’t get to see them for a bit, but better because we knew they had at least tried to get in contact with us. 

Sleep time and get ready for the trek to Key West in the morning.  Happy Father’s Day 2012!

The  St. Johns River

horse and carriage ride with our driver Aaron

Olivia with Bridge of Lions in background

Florida grasshoppers.