Our Anniversary Celebration

 Thank you, everybody, for the kind and thoughtful comments on my previous blog post where I made the announcement of our anniversary. The actual day was the 14th (yesterday, as I write this) so today I will show you the snapshots taken as we celebrated. 

cards and Mother's Day flowers

My guy has many sterling qualities. One of them is that he gives me THE BEST cards!!! I save them all, making note at the very bottom on the inside of the card the year it was given. Now after 4 years of birthdays, Valentine's, Christmases, and anniversaries, I have a wonderful collection of the sweetest, most heartfelt words. His sentiments are no joke (I mean, his cards are serious), which stirs my heart. My personal "love language" is Words of Affirmation, which explains why his cards to me are so precious. 

click here for
purchase information

By the way, if you don't know what your "love language" is, look up Gary Chapman's book, pictured above.

diamond and garnet earrings

We began our day with the exchange of cards and then a small black box appeared from Kay Jewelers, you know the company that says, "Every kiss begins with Kay". (it's true, you know!! ❤️) Inside was this pair of beautiful earrings that match the necklace Gary gave to me for Valentine's Day. So, be-decked with jewels and a smile on my face, we headed out for our day-trip.

anniversary celebration destination

We both have been to St. Augustine before, and more than once, but this was our first time to go there together. Having found the address for free parking at our destination, we entered that into the Waze map app I prefer to use. (it's free and very user-friendly. Check it out on your cell phone's app store) 

Waze

Although this was probably my 6th trip to St. Augustine, I had pretty much seen the same [few] things on every trip and had never taken a real tour. After enjoying the trolley tour during our November trip to New Orleans, I became convinced that is possibly the best way to acquaint oneself with more than a general familiarization with a city, so that's what we did in St. Augustine.

stickers on our shirts 
for trolley admission

While not an inexpensive option for sightseeing, we saw and heard a lot of information in a 90-minute ride that made the $$ worthwhile. There was also the benefit of free parking just steps from the ticket booth. 

By the way, here is the address of where we parked. If you plan a road trip to tour St. Augustine, put this into your GPS:

167 San Marco Avenue

St. Augustine, FL 32084

There are other parking options, but this one worked very well for us.

We had a choice of 4 different tours, each one including admission to features we preferred. Our tour had 22 stops:

Oldest Store Museum

Visitor Information Center 

Potter's Wax Museum, Old Drug Store, Huguenot Cemetery

City Gates and Pirate & Treasure Museum

Colonial Quarter, Castillo de San Marcos

Bay View

Hypolita St., St. George St., St. Augustine Shipwreck Museum, Medieval Torture Museum

Flagler Memorial Presbyterian Church, Grace United Methodist Church, Ancient City Baptist Church

Villa Zorayda Museum

Lightner Museum, Flagler College, A Ghostly Experience, Haunted Pub Crawl, Savory Faire Food & Wine Tour

Lincolneville Museum and Cultural Center

St. Augustine Distillery

San Sebastian Winery, Whetstone Chocolates of St. Augustine

Plaza de la Constitution, Government House, Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, Pena-Peck House

St. Augustine Marina, Ripley's Bayfront Mini Gold, Schooner Freedom Scenic Cruise, Eco Tours, The Black Raven, Spanish Military Hospital Museum, Zimenez-Fatio House, St. Augustine Parasail

Oldest House, Fernandez Llambias House

Castillo de San Marcos

Ripley's Believe It or Not!, Red Train Tours

Old Town Trolley Welcome Center, Ghost & Gravestones, Uptonw San Marco Shopping District 

Mission of Nombre de Dios, Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche

The Old Senator, Villa 1565

Fountain of Youth

me with Mr. Ponce de Leon himself!

The tour bus allows riders to jump off and on at any of the stops. Fortunate for us, one of the main things we wanted to see was at our last stop, The Fountain of Youth. This was one of 3 or 4 attractions included in our trolley fare, so we just had to show our trolley receipt to get in. 

The water for the Fountain of Youth was inside a stone building and dripping out of a clay urn. Disposable cups were provided. 

We both drank deeply and our thirst for hydration was satisfied. No immediate physical changes took place. It's now about 24 hours later as I write about it and so far we are both as gray-haired, wrinkled, and in need of an afternoon nap as we were yesterday. 🙄

However, as born-again Christians know, the real 'fountain of youth,' or another way of phrasing it, 'the water of life', is our belief in Jesus Christ, as recorded in the New Testament where Jesus said, 

"Everyone who drinks this water

will be thirsty again, 

but whoever drinks the water I give them

will never thirst.

Indeed, the water I give them

will become in them 

a spring of water 

welling up to eternal life."

John 4:13-14

milky white Gardenias

After exiting that building, we toured through the gardens, which were much more quiet than the noisy (although enjoyable) trolley ride.

One notable exception to the tranquility were several peacocks strutting about announcing their presence with their noisy call. I took 3 snapshots of this one but even with the tools in my photo program, I'm not able to bring out the vibrant colors of his feathers. He walked in a particular way, much like those showgirls in Las Vegas when they wear huge headpieces as they swagger across the stage.

As I said earlier, our trolley fare included some attractions. After enjoying fast-food-type sandwiches (which were very good) at outdoor picnic tables, we got the tour of The Oldest Store Museum. My photos of that follow. Wax figures looked shockingly real.....

 

This (above), however, is no man made of wax! Nor is the jail bird pictured below.....

The Old Jail tour

Probably the most revealing information I gathered from the entire visit to St. Augustine was given at The Old Jail tour. Our guide (above) gave us a very interesting as well as entertaining excursion through the original jail house in St. Augustine. Comprised of 3 floors and lots of metal cells lacking absolutely any means of privacy for the most personal of needs, this tour should make anybody think twice before committing a crime -- at least in those days!! 

In this photo, some government officials were having a meeting in one of the jailhouse rooms. Both men are made of wax. The one on the right, especially looked so real that I had to squint my eyes as I approached him, not sure if he was alive or fake. His left hand had the blood vessels and bones showing through his skin as it is on my hands. It was an amazing work of skill and art!

It may have been that same man who mercifully released us so we could leave the dark gloom of that jailhouse, (hopefully never to return!!). You see our documents of pardon pictured.

Back outside in the brilliance of sunshine and freedom, I couldn't resist taking this picture of Gary since his military service included law enforcement, security, investigating crime, and wrestling bad guys to the ground.

These two museums were in the area of our free parking, the kiosk where we had bought our trolley tickets, and a large, well-supplied gift shop. With plenty of touristy-type T-shirts in my closet already, I opted for refrigerator magnets. There were many from which to choose and they were reasonably priced! (such is not always the case)

The gift shop also had ice cream, so Gary got a chocolate mallow blend in his cone, and mine was rainbow sherbet. We enjoyed them in the car on the drive back home.

It was a full day, well-spent. We made more good memories to add to our happy marriage, for which we are both profoundly grateful.

Until next time, grace and peace.

Barbara