12/20/15   Sunday    somewhere between St. Augustine and Daytona

Oh, my. Our social and tourist calendars have been way too full to keep up with the blog. We LOVED St. Augustine and were there 4-5 nights at a great time of the year. The city was all decked out for Christmas and other winter holidays.

This was the view from our boat. We were moored at the seawall, corner of the Lions Bridge and Avenida Menendez (sp?), right at the park. We had a great time taking the Port of Call shuttle to various places where we could spend money - grocery store, marine consignment store, liquor store, health food store.

Shuttle gals - Sandy, Hercules, and Catherine (aka Sister).
They were wonderful, fun and accommodating.
Catherine graduated from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME

We toured the Castillo de San Marco with friends Dan and Wendy (did I already say this?), ran into but didn't really get to visit Dana and Craig and met new friends from Portland, Maine, (but they've been sailing for 5 years) Stu and Barbara. Barbara's roommate in college is best friends with Lynda Fitzgerald who we visited in Annapolis. Honestly, the world is small.

Dan and Wendy and we went to a "Cruisers Net" evening at an Irish pub. Had some beer and snacks and lots of chatter with other sailing folk. I particularly enjoyed Mary and Mike but can't remember much about them 4 days later. After the pub David and I were able to meet up with my college friend, Michael Colina, his wife Robin and their friends in from Germany, Ana Claudia and Ira. A brief meeting but great nevertheless. Sheldon and Barbara drove up from DeLeon Springs. We had dinner on board Grace then they took us o a walking tour of part of the Old Town and to Flagler College, then to Casa Monica to hear the jazz band there. We took photos of Flagler College the next day.

Gate into the Ponce de Leon Hotel, now the Flagler College

Main entrance 

Once a hotel, now residence, cafeteria, and probably some admin offices

Detail from the main entrance, small mosaic squares

Frog and turtle fountain in main courtyard entrance

closer view. All the frogs are different from each other 

Rotunda inside the main entrance

Really, can you imagine trying to study in such a beautiful place? Apparently, Mr Flagler built this hotel and one across the street, Hotel Alcazar that is now the Lightner Museum, among others. Then he built an even more lavish hotel in Palm Beach and built a railroad to take his patrons there where it was warmer. So, the St. Augustine hotels fell on hard times, being in a more temperate, aka colder, climate. Mr. Flagler gave one hotel to become a college. The other just languished for a number of years until Mr. Lightner decided to buy it to exhibit his "collections".

Mr. Lightner was a collector, not to be confused w/a hoarder. I was told by one of the volunteers the difference between collector and hoarder. Collectors want to share their collections, have others view them. Hoarders want to keep their possessions to themselves. In Mr Lightner's museum were collections of rocks, cut crystal glassware, buttons, cigar labels, wine labels, samplers, crochet lace, phonographs, Venetian glass, beaded purses....and on and on and on...sculptures and paintings but fewer than I expected...or maybe they were in storage. I was told that the 4th floor was full of other collections. So, we saw the collections and also parts of the extravagant hotel -large ballroom, Turkish baths, swimming pool!

Garden entrance to hotel/Lightner Museum

...and in the collection...

Two kinds of marble. How do the artist do this?

Ballroom, now gallery with furniture, sculptures, paintings. The ballroom is a
rectangle with open air space to the floors below. Perfect floor for dancing
Wonder if ballet or modern companies are ever invited to perform here

Looking down from the Ballroom into what was once the
Swimming Pool. See the marble stairs in the upper right
corner. For special events divers would dive from the
Ballroom into the pool 2.5 stories below.

On a more human (?) scale...this lady and several of her friends were fishing at the edge of the dinghy dock. The wind was blowing fiercely so the feathers were ruffled.

snowy egret

Okay, let the journey continue. Happy Solstice tomorrow! Be joyful every chance you get.