St. Augustine, FL and Anastasia State Park, Part 1

5 March 2013

Even though we made our reservations months ago, we could only get two nights of camping here at Anastasia State Park. So we took what we could and are very glad we came. All the sites are extraordinarily private, and feel almost as if you’re camping in your own isolated piece of some jungle. Plus today was the perfect weather—sunshine and mid-70s.

We decided to devote today to seeing historic St. Augustine, an easy drive from the park. Alas, we are both disillusioned with the historic downtown we saw today—a dense zone of shops, shops, and more shops, detracting from the historical aspects.

We did enjoy very much our time at Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, originally a Spanish fort built from 1672 to 1695, and then our lunch at Barnacle Bill’s Seafood Restaurant, but Great Husband summed up his disappointment with the rest of historic downtown St. Augustine this way, “It wasn’t very sincere.” I agreed and thought that he had elegantly expressed it. (He was thinking of Linus who decided that the Great Pumpkin must have found his pumpkin patch not sincere enough.) Maybe the problem is that we have been spoiled by Colonial Williamsburg and by the way the National Parks interpret history, and we hoped to find something similar in this historic Florida city.

While using the park’s WiFi, Great Husband went undercover so he could

 see the computer screen. Funny, but before long, other people were

 imitating the towel method!

Crossing the dry moat into the Sally Port of Castillo de San Marcos. The moat was designed to be dry

 and was used as a place to keep livestock when townspeople retreated into the fort under siege. 

Unfortunately, to make the moat look prettier, it was filled with water from 1938 to 1996,

 and that did lots of damage to the fort.

An artilleryman of 1740 in the fort’s central plaza 

San Carlos Bastion looking over Matanzas Bay

The fort was built of a seashell limestone called Coquina, which is very fragile.

 This means ongoing preservation problems.

The historic area of St. Augustine is densely packed with shops.

Playing a didgeridoo for tips

This parish, Cathedral/Basilica of St. Augustine, was founded in 1565.

We found it of no particular beauty either inside or outside. 

Perhaps the oldest wooden school building in the United States

A view of Flagler College, formerly the Ponce de Leon Hotel

St. Augustine Lighthouse

Baking Bread in the Car, Part 2

4 March 2013

Our first baking-in-the-car experiment will be 100% Whole Wheat Bread from "Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day." The dry ingredients are very simple: whole wheat flour, yeast, kosher salt, and vital wheat gluten.

The only wet ingredient is lukewarm water.

 Freshly mixed dough

Dough after resting for two hours at room temperature 

You can bake a loaf of bread right away, or refrigerate the dough to make it easier to handle. This time we refrigerated the dough overnight. The next morning I tore off half the dough, enough for about a one-pound loaf, and returned the rest of the dough to the fridge. Without any kneading or punching down, and with minimal handling, I formed the dough into a loaf on a piece of parchment paper.

 

Score the dough about 1/4" deep.

Both the loaf and the parchment paper go into the slow cooker. How easy!

A double layer of paper towels keeps moisture from dripping onto the bread as it bakes. 

Ready to drive--the slow cooker goes onto the floor of the car, plugged into the inverter. We set the temperature to Keep Warm for one hour of rising, and then changed the temperature to Hot for 2 1/2 hours of baking.

 The finished bread doesn’t look glamorous, but it tastes good! Especially with tahini!



UPDATE--Look for a third post on this topic as I gain more experience.

Baking Bread in the Car, Part 1

4 March 2013

As part of Great Husband’s anti-migraine diet, we are avoiding all food additives—if the ingredients list includes any chemical names, we don’t buy it. In order to have bread on this trip without searching for health food stores, we’ll be baking our own bread in our little slow cooker either in the Escape or in the car, as is convenient for the day’s activities.

We wonder if we might be the first people to ever bake bread in a car!

Before leaving home, I discovered a book called “Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.” The dough recipes from this book are mixed and stored in the same container which is definitely convenient for camping. Just tear off a piece of dough to make fresh bread when you are ready. One of the lovely things about these “Five Minutes a Day” recipes is that there is absolutely no kneading.

These bread recipes are intended to bake in an oven, but since we don’t have one in our Escape 19, we are baking in our 1.5 quart Proctor-Silex slow cooker, which we bought especially for camping. We like the small size and the fact that it has temperature settings similar to larger slow cookers.

Back at home I had prepared multiple bags of pre-measured dry ingredients which are each a half-recipe from the bread book. Each half-recipe bag will make two loaves of bread.

Today is our first attempt at baking in the car, and the next post will give the details.

Grayton Beach State Park

2 March 2013

Yesterday’s drive from Fort Pickens to Grayton Beach State Park was slow-going through about 70 miles of continuous beach towns, none that impressive, and all too touristy for the taste of us tourists. At least the slow driving gave us excellent gas mileage while towing—20 mpg.

This is a very pretty park with spacious, well-separated sites, gorgeous white sand beach, and beautiful dunes which are being preserved and are forbidden to human trespassers. We talked to a ranger who was shoveling white sand into a wheelbarrow from the boardwalk before dumping it back onto the beach. It reminded us greatly of some other white stuff that Great Husband was shoveling just last week.

There's our little Escape 19 across the brackish waters of Western Lake.

Hiking the Dune Loop Trail at Grayton Beach

Grayton Beach dunes that survived Hurricane Katrina

Sand and sky

This morning we counted four Airstreams camping here at once. Almost everyone is here with enormous fifth wheels, trailers, or motor homes. On the front of one was an appropriate sign that said, “Ultimate Behemoth.”

We are in Site 12, with our “back yard” on Western Lake. We are taking it easy while we are here, and I’m trying to get more calories into Great Husband who has been losing too much weight while he avoids an extensive list of possible migraine triggers. For his second breakfast of the morning I made a batch of buckwheat pancakes. And our little slow cooker is out on the picnic table right now, filled with beef stew.

It is still colder here than we anticipated, although at last today there has been some much-appreciated sunshine. We are wearing our winter coats with the hoods up and are thankful for our little electric space heater, which has been getting a workout. We would vote for less wind when walking on the beach or out on the nature trail.  Weather reports here include the predicted highs and lows, but also the “chop forecast” (how choppy the water will be in the Gulf) and the “rip current forecast” but we don’t see anybody going out on the water. A park ranger told us that when it warms up, dolphins will be here, visible from the beach. Wouldn’t we like to see that!

Pensacola and Fort Pickens, Part 3

28 Feb 2013

Pensacola is home to the Naval Aviation Museum, which we visited today. A member of the Merchant Marines from the World War II generation gave us a tour, and as is usual with tours, it brought the place to life for me. I’ll mention just two of the many planes on display.

One is the only American plane, a Dauntless dive bomber, still in existence from Pearl Harbor. It went on to fight at the Battle of Midway and limped back with over 200 bullet holes and inoperable landing gear on one side. At the carrier the crew was told to bail out and ditch the aircraft, but because the co-pilot was wounded, they decided to try to land anyway, and managed to do it successfully. The plane was returned to be a trainer plane at Lake Michigan and ended up at the bottom. Years later it was recovered and restored for this museum.

The second story is of a little Cessna, used by a major of the South Vietnamese military to try to escape at the end of the war. He packed his wife and five children into the plane and took off in the direction where he believed he might find an American aircraft carrier. When by good fortune he found the carrier, he dropped notes explaining his predicament until one of the notes was retrieved from the flight deck. The carrier was already so crowded with U.S. planes and helicopters that a senior officer on board told the captain “Your career is over if you push any of those helicopters overboard!” But the captain disobeyed and discarded enough helicopters from the flight deck that the little Cessna could land, putting human life ahead of equipment. The Vietnamese family ultimately settled in Pensacola and all have become very successful here.

It seems we have timed our visit for unseasonably cold weather, depending on which expert you consult. We've taken three walks to the beach and needed to bundle up every time, although Great Husband did wear shorts once so he could walk briefly in the Gulf of Mexico. We are collecting shells for the grandkids to play with later on this trip.

On Santa Rosa Island. Wind-blown snow. Oops. Wind-blown sand.

Boardwalk through the dunes on Santa Rosa Island

Cold waters of the Gulf of Mexico

The great Corsair, flown by Pappy Boyington with the Black Sheep Squadron

Blue Angels

Some stylish digs in Pensacola

And more stylish digs in Pensacola Beach.
We like the pastel colors.

Back to the beach in our winter coats

Aaargggh, maties!

Peg Leg Pete’s Oyster Bar is a popular and lively restaurant in Pensacola Beach, and we had a wonderful dinner there. Mine was blackened grouper with Cajun sauce, sugar snap peas, rice pilaf, and garlic bread. Fabulous! Great Husband has been eating an anti-migraine diet for 5-6 weeks now with great success, so eating at a restaurant was a special treat. We’re counting on no ill results.

Pensacola and Fort Pickens, Part 2

27 Feb 2013

We walked a lot today, taking a route from our site in Loop A west nearly to the end of Santa Rosa Island on the Florida National Scenic Trail. (The Florida National Scenic Trail runs from here clear to the Everglades.) At the west end of the island is Fort Pickens, one of some 40 forts built in the early 1800s mostly on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. A National Park Service ranger led an entertaining and informative tour of the fort. Built with slave labor, the fort was intended to defend against the aggression of other nations. Fort Pickens, however, was never the scene of battle except early in the Civil War, and it remained a stronghold of the Union in the Deep South.

In one of those quirky episodes of history, Fort Pickens also figured in the life of the famous warrior and medicine man Geronimo. Geronimo and other Apaches were being taken to St. Augustine for imprisonment after refusing to cooperate with the reservation system. When powers in Pensacola got word of this, they pulled strings and arranged to have the group instead imprisoned at Fort Pickens, where Geronimo became a money-making tourist attraction.

Touring the old Fort Pickens
Don't fire your cannon more often than once in fifteen minutes
or it may overheat and explode!

One of the casemates (cannon stations) at old Fort Pickens

In case you're ever tempted to
complain about your campsite....
this one in Loop E of Fort Pickens Campground  is drowning.
The stair from their camper heads directly into the water.
There was a big rain shortly before we arrived.
Everything is drier in Loop A where we are.

Note that their electric power cord goes down into the water!

Pensacola and Fort Pickens, Part 1

26 Feb 2013

Joe Patti’s in Pensacola came highly recommended, so promptly after getting our fridge door examined we stopped at this popular fish market before heading for our campground at Fort Pickens. At Joe Patti’s we bought our dinner to microwave in the camper, some fresh grouper from the Gulf of Mexico.  

    

We arrived at the entrance gate to the Gulf Islands National Seashore on Santa Rosa Island a bit before 5 p.m. Hanging on the gate was an ominous sign saying “Road Closed.” We had learned during our planning of the trip that this road could be closed due to flooding. And in the window of the entrance station was another sign “Closed.” Great Husband presumed we were out of luck, and would not be able to proceed to the campground. My immediate reaction, however, being Pollyanna, was that the signs were not to be taken seriously and it would all work out somehow. Sure enough, there was a National Park Service employee in the “closed” entrance station who confirmed our camping reservation and opened the gate so we could use the road. As we drove all alone down the “closed” road, skirting some rainwater that had nowhere to drain, we enjoyed an incredible pastel sunset and white quartz sand drifting and blowing across the road, looking exactly like snow back home.

We've been watching out for both armadillos
and these little guys on the road.

Local wildlife

Captain Joe's boat by his fish market

Safely past the closed gate, we enjoy the drive to Fort Pickens campground