Trip to Florida – Part III

On our last day in St. Augustine, Florida, we went to the Memorial Presbyterian Church – a church built and completed in 1890 after one year of construction.  To complete the church this quickly, workers worked 24 hours a day with two crews of 500 men.   The style is Venetian Renaissance.  Inside the church there is an Aeolian-Skinner Pipe Organ that has over 5000 pipes!  The largest pipes are 32′ tall!

Next, we visited the St. Augustine Lighthouse.  Since younger children can not go inside the lighthouse, my sister & I stayed behind with the little ones.  The tower is 165′ tall with 219 steps to reach the top.

We took the scenic route from St. Augustine to Jacksonville.  At this stop we saw dolphins (at least that’s what we think they were) several times.  It was so exciting.

The seashore is literally made up of millions of seashells.

My family.

My sister’s family that went sightseeing with us.

That night we had supper at Clark’s Fish Camp.  The place has mounts everywhere and that’s no exaggeration.  You would not find this place unless you knew about it.  You drive down quiet neighborhood streets and think you’re lost but surprise(!) you’re not.  The restaurant is at a dead-end.  All kinds of meat is served here.  Some of the foods the more adventuresome amongst us tried was frog legs, alligator meat and kangaroo.  I had the alligator, which is a white meat, and found it to be very good albeit chewy.

In Jacksonville, we went to see the Kingsley Plantation, a slave plantation that grew Sea Island cotton, sugar cane, corn, beans and potatoes.

Here Justus gets to see what it would be like to pick cotton.

Success!

The Kingsley Plantation

Slave quarters which were constructed of tabby.  Tabby is made of oyster shells which were burned and ground for lime.  This was then mixed with water and sand.  Tabby was pourable or could be made into bricks.

There was this friendly little armadillo there, too.  Interesting looking creatures aren’t they?

We then left Florida and travelled to Alabama where I got to spend a few days with a friend that I hadn’t seen in 15-18 years.  I even had a birthday while I was there.  They took us to a Japanese restaurant named Shogun where they cook the food in front of you and put on a show.  I’ve never been to anything like this and found it very enjoyable and the food very good!

I had a wonderful time traveling and was quite ready to stay longer, but since money doesn’t grow on trees yet, 🙁  we had to head home.  You know what that means, right?  LAUNDRY!  I heard the mountain of laundry recently called Mt. Washmore.  🙂 I like that.  Thankfully, after a week, that mountain is no longer in sight.