Sunday, August 7, 2016

Long Weekend in St. Augustine

We had an awesome long weekend in St. Augustine, one of our favorite places. Here's the pix:

 Our first night. The very nice lady at the restaurant told us where to go for dinner. We accidentally went to the wrong place but had already sat down and were too embarrassed to leave. It was fine though. Very tasty sweet potato-tots.
I was behind in my fitbit steps so I walked back to the hotel from the restaurant. I found this skull beside the sidewalk.
The bed and breakfast we stayed at (Pearl of the Sea) was amazing. This is us on the pier at the end of their boardwalk, overlooking a salt marsh on our first night there.
I took this picture for Heather. This was the manatee basics sign on the dock.
 This is the B&B from the end of the boardwalk.
 This is the chandelier in the B&B dining room. The picture doesn't do it justice, it was actually really cool.
On Friday, David and I played putt-putt. He's such a good husband, he totally let me win. :-)
 David at the Ripley Believe it or Else! (as he called it) museum.
Me looking fit and trim. Haha. Funny thing about this picture, it was in a fun house mirror (which is why I look thin - but look at my legs - you can clearly see how totally ballooned my right leg still is. It doesn't hurt or anything, but man, did I feel conspicuous!
David with a Psyduck in downtown St. Augustine.
 We celebrated my huge weight loss at the museum with some ice cream!
Us, waiting in a restaurant for our friends.
 I took a long walk, there were a billion zillion fiddler crabs everywhere. I love these little guys.
I never noticed before - they use their little bitty claw to feed themselves. I guess they use the big one for ballast!
More fiddlers.
A marsh bunny on the sidewalk by the B&B.
The diversity of the colors of the fiddler crabs was very cool.
This picture was a total accident - I never even saw the bee till I downloaded the picture.
Jason, Mary and David on the overlook at Matanzas Inlet.
Another of my favorite critters, the Ghost Crab!
Jason, Mary and David.
The Ghost Crab on the move.
Heather and I recently had a huge discussion about ghost crabs and she was surprised I hadn't seen them before until fairly recently. I'm starting to understand why I haven't seen many.
I love their little eye stalks, they remind me of Mr. Crabs in Spongebob.
 I don't know that I've ever seen a juvenile Reddish Egret before.
Here he is eating the fish.
And here, you can see the fishy in this throat!
I liked this picture. If a tourism board asked me for a picture of Florida, this is what I would send them.
I love pictures of flocks in flight. It always makes me laugh that, much like humans, there are always one or two total goofs in there flying with their arms and lets all akimbo.
Some pretty red flowers on the beach.
An Osprey, doing what an Osprey do.
I love the coquina on the beaches here.
Me, David, Jason and Mary at Matanazas Inlet.
A cool blue tailed skink that we saw at Ft. Manatees State Park.
Another shot of the blue tailed skink that we saw at Ft. Manatees State Park. Skinks are another one of my favorite critters.
Another master of disguise - there is a HUGE Cuban Anole in this picture.
David and Jason and Fort Matanzas.
Me and Mary at Fort Matanzas.
The bed and breakfast was amazing. The room was so beautiful...
...with so much attention to design and detail.
 Even the bathroom was pretty.
 Our third night there, we went to the restaurant that the nice lady at the B&B told us to go to.  The food was great, but man, they just couldn't keep the rats off the tables!
David at the restaurant.
Another Psyduck, this one on the dock of the B&B.
Did I mention how magnificent the Pearl of the Sea B&B is? I took this picture from the boardwalk at dusk.
This green anole was on the boardwalk. There was another one, that I didn't get a picture of that had the longest tail I've ever seen on an anole - it was nearly twice the length of it's body.
More fiddler crabs.
I need to research if the different colors mean anything. Perhaps age?
The ones without a big claw are the girls.
 The B&B from the boardwalk in the morning.
This is an osprey, also from the board walk. His breakfast was not nearly as good as ours!
This B&B really put the "Breakfast" in "Bed and Breakfast". This morning we had Shrimp Benedict. It was divine. The food was crazy good, each day better than the last, and the first day was a spectacular Italian strata, and the second day was a French omelet. Oh, and there was desert every day too. Amazingly great food.
I tried my hand at taking some panoramic shots. This was the dock at the end of boardwalk.
After we left the B&B this morning, we went to Marineland. Here are some Diamond-back Terrapin.
David and I with a dolphin.
A lubber at Marineland. Yes, I know they are an exotic and are destructive, but I still think they are wicked pretty.
David in a Shark mouth!
Us, with Poseidon looking down upon us, somewhat angrily, though I'm not sure why.
A spider web at a creek we stopped at to hike on the way home.
This is a molted exoskeleton of a Cicada.
One of the better panoramas that I shot.
David looking all handsome and Davidy.
The problem with Panoramas is sometimes it distorts things a little. This one made me laugh.
The boardwalk wasn't really rounded.
This was totally our sighting of the day. A really really HUGE female Broadhead Skink.
She was a beauty. But we aren't entirely sure if it is a Southeastern 5-line or Broadhead Skink.

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