Day 4: Fountain of Youth and the Beach

On Wednesday we knew we all wanted to hit the beach. It was 80 degrees out and the beach was literally about 100 yards from our camper. There was still a lot of stuff we wanted to see in St Augustine so we decided we would check out some more stuff in the morning and then spend the afternoon at the beach.

We drove back through downtown and made our way over to the Ponce de Leon Fountain of Youth. Supposedly when Ponce de Leon ended up in Florida he was on a search for the Fountain of Youth. However, this is subject to speculation. Regardless, they have a historical site called the Fountain of Youth. It includes a symbolical fountain - which really is just dispensing some not-so-great tasting spring water – and then a historic village that is representative of life back in the day.

First, we hit up the fountain. Like I said, it was kinda gross water, but when eternal youth is a possibility, you take a swig.

Next, we fed and mingled with the peacocks walking around.

They had a blacksmith who put on a demonstration for us which the kids really liked.

They fired a gun, and a cannon, and then we all played with the fake cannon which you could “light”.

Everyone was doing great behavior wise until the end when we were getting ready to leave and Nolan lost it. That was a struggle but we eventually got back to the car and then back to the motorhome to take a break before the beach.

As I mentioned, the beach was super close to us so after lunch we walked over. Several things made this beach visit more successful than our last: A) we didn’t bring a stroller, B) we had a large beach blanket, and C) Nolan stopped eating sand! The tide was low so there was a really large area of sand which was great because all the kids could be in the water, or up at the blanket in the soft sand, or making sand castles in the hard sand.

Before going to the beach, I picked up a couple boogie boards at the grocery store. We never remember to bring these so I have purchased a few over the past several years. The kids all lover them and they could play on them for hours if we let them. Eventually I will need to invest in 5 legit boogie boards, because while these held up fine, there were signs they wouldn’t last a whole camping season.

We spent 2.5-3 hours at the beach and eventually headed back. Everyone had a blast. I can't think of one time we went to the bench and we didn't all have fun. Especially when you're at an ocean beach. I think it's part of the good and the bad of living somewhere that has a winter. You aren't near the ocean, so you don't get there often, but when you do it's precious time, especially if it's during the cold weather seasons.

It’ was easy to forget that although it felt like summer, it still got dark at 5pm in Florida. So we walked back at the end of the afternoon, just before sunset, and grilled some dinner. The next day was Thanksgiving and we had a few plans and dinner to make so we had a full day ahead.