St. Augustine Original City Gates

Rain Tree

We spent our third day in the historic area of St. Augustine. We spent a few hours strolling through the pedestrian mall on St. George Street. We actually spent some time to buy ourselves a souvenier of our stay here. We celebrated our 12th anniversary of meeting each other this week, so we decided to commemorate it with a special gift to ourselves. We looked at art work and such and settled on a utilitarian ceramic serving dish that has shells all around it. Very beautiful. We will store it away under our bed until we have a home again.

We got a great shot of the original city gates (above). Over 400 years ago, the city was under Spanish rule and was constantly under attack as it is a desireable location. So, they had a strict curfew and if you were not inside the city gate by nightfall, you got to spend it outside which was extremely dangerous in those days. There was a mote around the gate that was not filled with water, but with cactus to keep intruders out.

The second picture of a rain tree is neat. We found out today that these trees have their leaves turn red after it rains. Guess what it did last night???

We had a lovely day poking around in stores, listening to music, and sharing a break with a cappuccinos and root beer.

We had a funny thing happen today. At least I thought it was poetic justice. We have been getting up really early to take turns getting our exercise done first thing in the morning. I was up at 6:30 and a truck started up and took off next to us right when I was getting up. It woke up Yvonne and started her day way too early. We ended up having a rough enough start that we forced her to have a nap at 10 AM to try and get her back on track. So, we got to the tour train station at about noon and there was another couple from the trailer park there. We got talking and we mentioned our slow start and I said "Well, someone revved up their truck at 6:30 this morning and woke Yvonne up.....". The guy got an extremely guilty look on his face and said "that was probably me - I was up before 7 and went to get a newspaper". Silence on our side - then we were saved by the train arriving and we all got on the train at opposite ends. Jim says "smooth move". I just couldn't help but be a bit smug that the guy deserved it if he couldn't stop himself from waking everyone up on a Sunday morning. I bet that guy'll think about it next time he thinks he's got to go somewhere that early.