Greetings from St. Augustine!

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
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The motorhome is in the shop in Jacksonville getting some things fixed (and new flooring! Woot!), so we're staying in St. Augustine in a beach condo for two weeks. We got a 2 BR, 2 BA fully equipped condo, on the beach, with two heated pools, a fitness room, and a bunch of other stuff for $500/week. So if you ever want to vacation in the St. Augustine area, check out Ocean Village Club.

It's chilly here, but supposed to warm up tomorrow. It was fairly steamy in Charleston when we left, then the temp dropped rather abruptly about an hour down the road. Got windy and cold - I say "cold" but it was around 60* and the Georgians and Floridians were wearing heavy coats. :lol:

One of the things I like best about being a homeless person is living in a variety of environments. I always wanted a condo on the beach, but I also always wanted a cabin in the mountains, and I also wanted an apartment in the heart of a bustling city. Oh, and an apartment in a quiet neighborhood with a wonderful market you can walk to every day like the Europeans. In the last year we have lived in all those places. When we leave somewhere, I'm always sad (except that crappy cabin in Bar Harbor), but excited to get to our new home. Even in the motorhome, our home remains the same but the campgrounds vary dramatically.

TripAdvisor has been my BFF these past couple of years, although one of those flighty friends who is mostly sane and lucid, with brief bouts of psycho. Mostly the reviews are reliable, and many people are quite generous in their detailed descriptions. You have your bitchers who want to complain about something that's their fault (like bringing their two large dogs to a "no pets" facility) or pick about something insignificant (like only having four bath towels in the room and they had to call housekeeping to bring them more), but you learn how to weed past those cranks. Yelp censors their reviews, which makes their ratings unreliable, but TA is pretty solid and has only let us down once: the Bar Harbor cottage had great reviews that it turned out they didn't deserve, but then I looked closer and saw that all of them were like 10 years old. My fault.

I've learned to look past the traditional hotels and resorts when planning our motorhomeless stays, and look for cottages and private rentals. They're cheaper and many times you get better amenities. We're not people who want to be pampered and have our sheets and towels replaced daily, and in fact we prefer not to have them bothering us every morning. We're fine with taking out our own trash. At our Sonesta in Burlington we were there for a month, so we set up housekeeping once a week and that was plenty. We always travel with basic cleaning supplies anyway for day to day stuff. We also like at least a mini kitchen so we can prep our own meals; even better if we can get a full kitchen.

Here's our digs:

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That last one is the view from our balcony; you can see the dunes, and the beach is just past that.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
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We've been boring the last couple of days. Going to the pool and eating food you don't care about - salads, cabbage soup, like that. The weather has been glorious and I'm working on getting my tan back. Today I had to run boring errands, but Monello found a biker bar (Barnone Saloon) that looked like it needed us on one of their stools. We met Kenny, our bartender from Richmond, who told us the interesting story of how he arrived in St. Augustine and never went back home.

FYI, when in an unfamiliar place and wanting a drink, go where the bikers go. They have a nose for good bars - or they make them good bars, whatever - but we have our best luck at bars that have a bunch of motorcycles parked out front.

Today I had a wonderful salad for breakfast, which I know nobody cares about, and for dinner we picked up wings at the Winn-Dixie hot bar. Tomorrow I'll try to be more interesting.
 
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limblips

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PREMO Member
You are very close to my favorite St A pub/bar. Sunset Grill on A1A. The have the best wing made with datil pepper sauce. A very unique flavored pepper. I believe their Happy Hour appetizers used to be bogo, not sure if they still do it.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
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You are very close to my favorite St A pub/bar. Sunset Grill on A1A. The have the best wing made with datil pepper sauce. A very unique flavored pepper. I believe their Happy Hour appetizers used to be bogo, not sure if they still do it.

We'll have to pop in :yay:
 

Hessian

Well-Known Member
Please tell me you are going (or have been) to the Fort. I went once, MANY decades ago, and would love to see it again. Thanks for the "on-the-road" commentary. Want to do that too!
 

vraiblonde

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Please tell me you are going (or have been) to the Fort. I went once, MANY decades ago, and would love to see it again. Thanks for the "on-the-road" commentary. Want to do that too!

We went last year when we stayed in Jax. It was very interesting :yay:
 

vraiblonde

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Today we took a ride down A1A to Daytona (note to self: must get convertible). It was a nice ride but St. Augustine is better - prettier, better architecture, more eaty/drinky/walky places. There's a small boardwalk area with a few shops and such but it really wasn't all that (unless there's stuff that we couldn't find).

Saturday we went to downtown St. Augustine and walked around, had lunch at Prohibition Kitchen. Then Sunday we went to the Chowder Debate - kind of like Taste of Solomons/St. Mary's/ etc but everyone was serving various renditions of clam chowder, then you vote on a winner. I've never been a fan of Manhattan clam chowder but Minorcan clam chowder is delicious, at least at Conch House. Spicy and a bit thick, lots of personality.

We need a few more pool days and at least one more downtown day before we leave. And we need to get to Sunset Grill for lunch or dinner.
 

Monello

Smarter than the average bear
PREMO Member
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vraiblonde

Board Mommy
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Also, parents:

Flagler College is GORGEOUS. Force your child to consider that as an option - they will thank you later.
 

Bonehead

Well-Known Member
Once upon a time you could drive south on A1A out of St Augustine and all the way down to Daytona was wide open beach, nothing but sand dunes now it's condos and homes. Very little beach access anymore.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
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Once upon a time you could drive south on A1A out of St Augustine and all the way down to Daytona was wide open beach, nothing but sand dunes now it's condos and homes. Very little beach access anymore.

Still a pretty drive - we like to see the houses, too. I thought there would be more stuff, like stop and get lunch or have a drink, buy a t-shirt, but nope.

Last night we sat out at Cap's On The Water and watched the sunset.

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Monello

Smarter than the average bear
PREMO Member
Once upon a time you could drive south on A1A out of St Augustine and all the way down to Daytona was wide open beach, nothing but sand dunes now it's condos and homes. Very little beach access anymore.

More or less there isn't a ton of development along the way down to Daytona. It's certainly not close to South Beach as far as being developed. Either way to A1A route is a lot more scenic than taking I95. Slower but scenic. Any business along the way is a local, small business. No chains until you get to Daytona proper.
 

Bonehead

Well-Known Member
Oh yeah I-95 is horrible in that stretch. I grew up in that area, spent a lot of time at the beach in the 60s.
 
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