Sunday, Nov 12^th, 2017

After lengthy discussion, we both admitted there’s nothing in Disney World we want to see badly enough to fight the crowds and cost. It’s weird, but I swear we didn’t find this info at home – we had to be here in town to finally find out what are the four themes of each Disney parks – 1. Same rides as in LA; 2. Water park; 3. Epcot Center, which by all reviews is a little dated/outmoded and 4. Disney movie world comprised of movies we haven’t seen or don’t care to see. Alas.  But, ok, no harm done. As it is Sunday, and it looks like rain, we’ll go to Universal Studios on Monday, after the bulk of the crowd is gone. (later Sunday night – we finally found the cost for a one day pass to Universal Studios. It would be close to $350 just to get in the door. Again, neither of us wanted to see Harry that badly.)

We spotted Canaveral National Seashore on the map and headed east. The drive of couple of hours was filled with massive highway construction, funky old-timey towns after big-city Orlando. We are trying to avoid the highway and take the side roads but it isn’t easy. Odd thing – people are as friendly as can be but as drivers, total insanity. Tailgating, weaving, speeding and slamming on brakes, left turns from the far right lane across all other lanes, running lights – it’s nuts, spooky nuts. In Costa Rica, people ignored the rules of the road and were in no hurry. Here, very aggressive and in a panic-hurry.

Anyway, Canaveral abuts the NASA launch area and you can see the launch towers from the park. The park itself is acres of low rolling sand dunes through bays and lakes, running out to the Atlantic Ocean. We spotted an armadillo waddling across the road. We climbed a boardwalk up and over, down to the surf and stuck our toes in the brown water. Not as cold as the Pacific but not near as warm as the Caribbean. Flocks of pelicans passed quite low overhead – we could hear the wind over their wings. The sand, a fine white powder which sticks to everything, was covered in seaweed, remnants of Hurricane Irma. (A lot of plastic mixed in with the debris) We stood and chatted with 2 ladies, one showing the other her very first beach ever. The newbie was too shy to talk but her smile was delighted.

There’s lots of hurricane damage to the towns along the coast. Not much rebuilding but many piles of lumber and other storm trash. All of the coast houses are impressive with many styles and their bright colors but some are truly massive intrusions. I’d hate to have my ocean view spoiled by a 4 story spreading monster across the street. And right smack on the beach – I guess they like the remodeling opportunity that is sure to come up again.

Had lunch at a Panera staffed with sincere but inept workers. Jim’s turkey and apple sandwich caused them quite a bit of grief as they aren’t equipped for “changes”. No cheese seemed to be a hard concept to grasp and the apple slices described turned out to be apple slaw. When Jim asked for just a plain, nothing but turkey, replacement, they gave him both. Told him they couldn’t take the first one back. As we left, the guy clearing our plates was worried when he saw the uneaten sandwich. Jim said “don’t worry about it” and left. I followed behind, explained the change and the kid says, “oh good, I didn’t want to leave pissed AND hungry”.(She told me this and it made me think of something out of a Jack Reacher novel)

Heading north up HWY 1, we found Ft Matanzas National Monument, a 1700’s Spanish fort placed at the mouth of the bay to protect St Augustine. Storm damage prevented our taking the ferry over for touring of the actual fort but the nature walk and visitors center were nice. The boardwalk through the hummocks, live oaks, saw palmetto and wild grape was pretty interesting, overhanging and strewn with possible tarzan-like swings.

so many things to focus on the camera got confused 

Caught a glimpse of the ocean through the bushes and heard lots of birds.

here too...

 

why not this one?

We enjoyed that enough to try for the next fort up the road in St Augustine - which we discovered is a big-time tourist town. Gorgeous old buildings with iron work balconies, covered in bright pink, yellow and turquoises paint with white gingerbread trim. There were hordes of people mobbing the streets and swarming the fort itself. As there was no parking, we passed on through and plan to hit it again on our way north on a more quiet day.

So far, the Florida we’ve seen is flat. There are low trees, some tall buildings and overpasses but that’s about it in the way of height. The feeling of “near-by ocean” is everywhere. And it is oh-so clean. There is no road trash, yards are stripped clean with acres of green grass and no bushes, there’s no broken down cars or fallen outbuildings, no extra nuthin’ anywhere. We can’t tell if it’s due to the hurricanes blowing everything away or if this area is really tidy. It is remarkable how picture perfect everything is kept.

We dined at an Italian restaurant across from our hotel. Our waiter, Daniel, was having a terrible time remembering anything. He offered to refill our water three times before finally taking it away with him. The wrong salads arrived, then the wrong meals, with the wrong sides. He kept apologizing and finally sat down with us to explain how he was losing his mind, he just wanted to go in the back and cry. It was pretty funny and slightly endearing. I think he’s bored to death and needs something new but who knows, maybe we’ll see him in SF someday. His manager came by to check on us, was concerned we hadn’t eaten the greens, explained they were great and we try, but we ( spelled "I") don’t eat greens. Complimented Daniel to her as it was obvious she was checking more on him than us. All in all, a good meal, excellent scampi and calamari, remarkable entertainment.