"In Florida, you're in the North once you're south of Orlando." As Dave and I spent four days in St. Augustine, Jacksonville, and the inland Florida towns nearby, I thought often of that remark by a member of Jonny's ward who had grown up in Jacksonville but was now living in Miami. Miami is international, Caribbean, and South American, but not Southern. The picture above epitomized, for me, the Southern culture of North Florida--a placid creek at sunset. You knew there were gators under that water, but nobody was marketing them.
Dave and I spent the whole day, on February 28, 2016, in St. Augustine's historical areas. We started the morning at the Castillo, or fort, built by the Spaniards in the 1600s to protect the important port of St. Augustine from pirates. The treasure ships of the Spanish Main sailed from the Mexican Coast and South America through the Gulf and refueled at Havana, before sailing up the coast to St. Augustine and then catching the Gulf Stream back to Spain. Sir Francis Drake, a pirate knighted by Queen Elizabeth of England, burned St. Augustine to the ground in the mid-1500s, and Roger Earle, another English pirate, savaged it again in the early 1600s.
Many historical eras were represented in St. Augustine's Old Town. We toured the Old Jail, a living history museum set in 1907. The jailer pretended that our group of tourists had been gathered up last night at the town bar, carousing and dancing on the tables. Some of us were repeat offenders. The jail was beautiful on the outside but brutal within. It was funded by Henry Flagler, developer of three luxury hotels in St. Augustine, who didn't want an ugly jail marring his beautiful city.
The gallows were last used in 1908, and we also saw leg irons from the Florida chain gangs.
The Old Store was another living history museum from 1907. We had witty, charming guides all day. The store manager puffed the value of his patent medicines and his washing machines powered by goats on treadmills with all the conviction of a man who lived on commission.
We were shown around the Colonial Quarter by another charming man who morphed from a Spanish soldier of the 1600s to a smith of the 1700s, and who then recited in one minute flat (as a teenager in the crowd timed him) all fourteen of the flags under which St. Augustine had flown.
We took a trolley tour around St. Augustine, passing the elegant hotels built by Henry Flagler, now turned into museums and universities. I like to leave a few choice sites unvisited in each city I tour, so I have an excuse to come back. I will return to St. Augustine to see this building's fine collection of Tiffany windows.
Dave and I searched for funky, local places to eat. We loved Clark's Fish Camp, located in Mandarin, a suburb of St. Augustine. We passed many fish camps in North Florida, where fisherman could buy bait and rent a boat or a tent. This "fish camp" was built alongside a quiet river. Inside were trophy animals from all over the world, and outside (and on the menu) were the gators.
David and I shared the Low Country Crab Boil, with crab, crawfish, shrimp, clams, potatoes, corn, and sausage, in a savory broth.
We decided we needed another dose of alligator, so we spent the morning of February 29, 2016, at the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine. It was a professional operation, showing all 23 of the varieties of alligators and crocodiles in the world, and working with the San Diego Zoo to preserve their DNA. We always love animal shows, with their snake handlers and alligator bulldoggers. One smart little boy at the snake show sat on the front row and shouted out answers, and we imagined Sam being that boy in a couple of years.
The Alligator Farm also had a great collection of tropical birds, tortoises, and "biggest of class" stuffed alligators.
After hearing repeatedly, in St. Augustine, how the Spaniards had murdered the French from Ft. Caroline during the 1500s, to preserve Florida for Spain, we decided to visit Ft. Caroline, up the coast on the St. Johns River. How different the culture of Florida would have been if the French, instead of the Spanish, had survived! It would have been another bit of Louisiana.
As I saw signs about manatees posted around Ft. Caroline, I remembered that the St. Johns River is where manatees spend the winter.
We experienced the pre-Civil War era at Kingsley Plantation, on Ft. George Island, the furthest south of the Sea Island cotton plantations.
The plantation had an interesting story. The plantation owner was a slave trader who fell in love with one of his slaves, had four children with her, and then paid for her and her children to live in Haiti when the Americans took over Florida in 1821 and enacted miscegenation laws.
The ranger told us that a t-shirt made of ultra-soft Sea Island cotton now sells for $140 at Ralph Lauren.
We ended our evening at the Cummer Museum in Jacksonville. It had an eclectic art collection, from a fine display of Meissen porcelain to paintings by Bougereau (one of my favorite painters, whom the Impressionists rebelled against) to 12 portraits of famous Jewish Americans by Andy Warhol. The Cummer also has lovely gardens and is a venue for weddings. We were at the Cummer at dusk, as night fell on the St. Johns River behind the gardens.
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