Kyna's 30th Birthday Extravaganza:Pt 4~Wrasslin' Gators

On Monday, Laura and her son Derek, Steve and Joan and their kids, and Chuck and myself tooled on down to St. Augustine.

St Augustine is regarded as the oldest city in the United States. It was established by Spanish settlers in 1565.

It's famous for it's old spanish fort called Castillo de San Marcos, that was built in the early 1600's.



Since we visited the fort the last time we were in Florida, we didn't visit again this time. But here's a picture of when we did visit, with me sitting on a cannon.




St. Augustine is a very touristy place, and to visit it on Memorial Day (as we did) was a brave venture. St George St was wall-to-wall people at times. And it was very hot outside.




Laura took us to The Conch House restaurant for a nice lunch. If you were eating outside, you could sit in your own little hut up flights of stairs. As a result of this, you could catch the nice cool breeze off the water and stay shaded from the sunshine.



In such a good mood

If I'm not making a face, Chuck is.

Steve and Joan


We were by the sea, so I assumed I'd be ordering seafood. How could you eat by the sea and eat a hamburger??

I was perusing the shrimp dishes, and suddenly an alligator comes waltzing up the steps like he owns the place.

I had to save the entire family by wrestling him to the ground! He put up a good fight, but in the end, I won.



Ok. That's an old picture. You can probably tell because I'm wearing that same damn red sweater as in the cannon picture, and I'm a lot thinner. And the gator isn't real.

I didn't wrestle any gators at lunch, but I ate one!




Deep-fried gator tail bites. Texture was a cross between chicken and calamari. It was freakin' delicious. Not really seafood as much as it is swampfood.

As I was enjoying my gator, I was interrupted by the sound of someone gunning a boat motor. The whole restaurant stopped eating and stared out onto the water (you can pull your boat right up to the restaurant, park it and eat). Some dude got his very large boat (I'll call it a yacht) stuck on a sandbar and couldn't get it off. He just kept gunning the motor like that would make a difference.

I love to laugh at silly rich people. Especially over lunch at the seaside. No offense if any of you Dear Readers are rich, but if you are, why the hell are you reading this blog post? You should be off bathing in $100 bills or something.

After lunch, we toured the historic St George St, and meandered through the shops.



Love this shot



The family had a nice break to drink some fresh, cold, lemonade



Chuck wanted me to take his picture with this door 'cause he thought it was cool.

Love the old oaks

Flagler College

I had a great time, but we were all getting hot and tired very quickly. We all piled into Steve's Sequoia like clowns into a Volkswagen, and made our way back to Jacksonville.

What did we do once we got back to Steve's? Why we planned what we were going to eat for dinner, of course. I think that's why I love Chuck's family so much. They love to laugh, and plan everything around eating. Reminds me of my own Ukrainian family! :)

I'll leave you with a picture of me and Steve's rat, I mean dog, Lola.



Next post will be the final day of Kyna's 30th Birthday Extravaganza (hey! are those sighs of relief I hear??), in which it will be my actual birthday and we visit one more beautiful, historic Southern city.