St. Augustine

So this weekend we had a little fun. Britney, Josh, Lindsey, and I drove up to St. Augustine for the day, which was a Saturday by the way, mainly to watch the lighting of the town and to go to the Ripley's Museum. But we did some other things here and there too. Fun fact: St. Augustine is the oldest town in the US….and it shows. I ended up driving, which I had no problem with, I actually really wanted to see how the Kia would fare on the interstate at 75mph. Shockingly…..ok. Not great, it shakes and sounds like the engine is running around 5K rpm, but it made it there and back, and got pretty great gas mileage too! I'm proud of my little Kia.

Anywho, back to the important stuff. We ended up driving straight to the Ripleys museum, which was alright, not as great and grand as I had expected. I think the TV show was better than the actual museum. But they also had some pretty cool stuff, like a thirty foot erector set ferris wheel, and this spinny tunnel thing that makes you feel like you are falling when you walk through it, when you are actually stationary. Its sort of like walking down a spinning barrel with a platform bridge down the center, but it really messes with your head and made me feel kind of sick.This poor old man, probably in his 80s, was in front of us in this thing, holding onto the railings with his life, taking a step every three seconds. It had to be horrible for him.

Then we  headed to the Castillo de San Marcos, which is right next door. I really wanted to go in but it was like six bucks a person so we said forget about it. I think we probably missed out though. It was pretty neat to see something that old though. You don't really get to see three hundred year old things around the States too much. After the castle we walked around town a bit, checked out the old stores and restaurants and such. Pretty touristy place.

Later we headed to a winery that was nearby, but only after getting lost in the ghetto of course….I think. The neighborhood looked like a ghetto but they all had pretty nice cars, so I'm not sure. Hmmm. Anywho, the winery was kind of a letdown too. Everyone that worked there seemed pretty disinterested in their jobs and in us. It was kind of a large winery and you could tell that they give tours constantly because they just send you with a group of people and you stop at four or five different stations to taste a couple of wines. Some were good, some weren't. Getting free wine is always good though.

Dinner was ok, just some bar/restaurant with some pretty odd live music from an older man who would literally just pick random strings on his guitar then tell a weird story about Walmart or some girl he met. Maybe he was being innovative, or maybe he had done too many drugs in his life, I don't know.  We ended up missing the actual lighting of the town by the way haha. It was during dinner, which was a few blocks down the street. The lighting of the town was a pretty big deal in St. Augustine, I mean they had bands playing and vendors and the whole nine yards. Once we got downtown, it was awesome though, really impressive! So me and Josh got out our celebratory cigars that we had bought earlier in the day, and destroyed our lungs and the lungs of various nearby children with them. Ahhh, good times.

Oh, we also stopped by Flagler College on our way to the car. That is one beautiful place! I was in awe of how elegant it was! We went into what looked like their union to use the facilities (pisser), and it was like we were in some type of kings court. Not the bathroom (although they were also very nice), but the whole place. So if you get a chance, google it or something.

So that was our Saturday. We drove home after that.

Heres that tunnel