AIA and St. Augustine (January 26)

Recommended by bartenders, hotel clerks, and fellow travelers alike was to take Route A1A, which begins on Amelia Island and pretty much follows the Florida coast right on the ocean for much of its way to Key West. 

A St. John's River ferry was being repaired, so we had to detour west toward Jacksonville. Passed the largest oil power plant I'd ever seen, and my photo shows only part of the campus.

Just liked this bow-tie bridge near Jacksonville.

There are long stretches of preserved land along A1A, like this in the Guana Tolomato Matanzes National Estuarine Research Reserve (a mouthful there). We were the only ones in the beach for miles, and in fact we saw few other cars. Talk about a getaway!

The beach's orange-y color comes from coquina shells.

There are mounds of them all along the way, dumptruck loads' worth, and when you plunge your hand into a pile, it's nothing but shells. Hard to imagine the vast number of individual creatures represented here.

We' visited St. Augustine several years ago, but both of us came down with the flu and we spend several miserable days holed up in an awful Super 8 motel. I wanted to revisit the town in an attempt to get rid of the awful memory, so we spent a warm afternoon here, first time we felt a good Southern sun.

Cool to see some archeology going on.

Public art around town featured copies of the local basilica dome like this one, artistically enhanced by local artists, in honor of the city's 450th anniversary.

Beautiful City Hall was originally built as Hotel Alcazar. Today the building also houses a museum, shops, and is a popular site for weddings.

Interior courtyard is so lovely.

Outside the building is a life-sized statue of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Spanish founder of the city. This reminded me so much of John Cleese playing Nearly Headless Nick in the Harry Potter series.

Standard Oil magnate Henry Flagler had the incredibly beautiful Ponce de Leon Hotel built in St. Augustine. Now it's home to Flagler College, replete with sand volleyball court and swimming pool.

Merrill Auditorium in Portland is designed by the firm of John Merven Carrère (November 9, 1858 – March 1, 1911) and Thomas Hastings (March 11, 1860 – October 22, 1929), one of the outstanding Beaux-Arts architecture firms in the United States. My friend Marianne Carrere shares a surname therein, so I had fun taking photographs of other building designed by the same team around St. Augustine, including Flagler College/Ponce de Leon Hotel, and City Hall.

Not bad for the interior of a women's dorm and dining hall.

Bountiful real Tiffany windows.

The fellow on the left let me know nonverbally how he felt about my taking this photo.

Flagler lived next door to the Presbyterian church he had built adjacent to the Ponce de Leon. This building was also designed by Career and Hastings.

Flagler's third wife was a Kenan, from Kenansville, NC. Together they endowed the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at UNC. Small world.

Amelia Island, Florida (January 23-26)

We asked friends for advice on where to stop when traveling along Florida's East Coast. A number of them recommended Amelia Island, the state's northernmost barrier island, so we chose that for our next destination.

We stayed off I-95, driving instead along Route 17, a southern mainstay. Just north of the Georgia/Florida state line we stopped here in Woodbine for.....you know we just had to. The Shut store sign is what got us, but the gorgeous Depression glass and someone's personal and amazingly curated fire fighter/ing museum was what kept us there.

Incredible collections of toys, figurines, tchotchkes, models, anything with a firefighting theme.

Immaculately displayed.

Throw-into-the-fire extinguishers

Firehose nozzles

Ceiling sprinklers...who knew there have been so many?

One couple, now deceased, assembled the entire collection. Another local guy is now in charge. He usually doesn't open at all to the public this time of year; we just got lucky in that someone had made a special request for him to be open the day we passed by. Can't believe we almost didn't stop.

South of Woodbine we passed through the relatively booming metropolis of Kingsland, GA, site of Steffens Restaurant, one of our favorite southern-style meals anywhere. Fried catfish, collards, cornbread, real mac-n-cheese, sweet tea, etc.

This is also where we saw snow flurries, quite the unusual occurrence!

On to Amelia Island, Florida. Tried to watch a Carolina basketball game at the Ritz-Carlton, a must-see venue, also according to friends. Turns out the game was the next night, but got to enjoy the hotel's incredible floral displays, like these orchids, for a few minutes.

Sunday morning also found us walking the 1/2 mile-long Fernandina Beach pier on Amelia Island.

Loved watching these small birds wheel around in unison, land on the jetty, then do it again over and over.

In the afternoon it was on to Ft. Clinch, built in the 1730's by the Spanish, and later overtaken from the Confederates by Union forces during the Civil War.  'Twas a beautiful day to be at a fort on the sea.

Our visit was recommended by Eero and Soile, who'd been here at one point for a paper industry conference (Soile's a Finnish pulp and paper industry executive). Several paper mills nearby dominating the skyline.

The park offered nature walks that gave me the willies. We saw no critters but certainly kept watching for them.

Lunch on the cheap, something we're trying to maintain both for financial and health reasons.

We're always looking for another beautiful sunset, and here's Amelia Island's version.

Discovered the mile-long fishing pier at the south end of Amelia Island on the self-named state park.

Lots of the birds hanging around the pier were fairly tame, so up-close photos were fun to take.

Walking on the adjacent beach that we had all to ourselves. Note tire tracks, One can drive on many beaches in Florida, especially in the off-season.

Monday night wedding, downtown Fernandina Beach.

Date night. Turns out we hit Amelia Island just in time for its annual restaurant week.