First Installment of the holiday

Ok, well I have now been home for a week and my holiday is a distant memory, my tan is fading to a glow :-) and I am not liking the cold. Don't worry I am not going to bore you with lots of photos but just a few. We had a couple of trips this year to places we haven't been before and these are the pictures I want to share with you.

The first pictures are of some of the cloud formations I saw during our flight. They looked like snow covered mountains. I find it quite fascinating up there in the sky.

On our first week we had some friends come up to visit that were staying down on St Petes. We went on a road trip to St Augustine.. The oldest continuously occupied European established settlement. You can definitely see the Spanish influence, a beautiful city and so interesting. Just a few pictures of the architecture. We did a trolley-bus tour which was really informative. A place that we will be visiting again next year. 

Picture of hubby and I on the lawns of the Castillo de San Marcos. 

This is a 'The Old Senator', the oldest living thing in St Augustine, a beautiful living oak. 

 We visited what was the city jail and had tour guide that again was very informative. The cells were very small and sometimes housed up to 6 or 7 prisoners. Looking round it was quite eerie especially as the jail only closed in 1953.

Here is a picture of the new female inmates..

...and the new male ones!!!

Whilst we up there we arranged a visit to the St Augustine Wild Reserve. No photography was allowed in case it spooked the animals. The reserve was opened by one woman and is run by volunteers. All the wild animals there have been rescued form circus', breeders, and over breeders. The volunteers are mainly women and they all have hands on with the animal. It's an amazing place. The best bit for me was when the guide we had called to the wolves ( they have 4 there) and all the wolves replied. It gave me shivers and if you closed your eyes you could have been in the wild. If you ever get to Florida it's a must place  to go.

After our 2 day trip we drove back home via 'The Beach Road' which is a bit more interesting then the interstate.

 Here we are having a paddle at St Augustine Beach

On the drive down we saw some beautiful beach houses for the rich an famous. Didn't have chance to take piccies but wouldn't have minded to live in one or two of them!!!

We stopped off at Daytona Beach. We wanted to drive down on the beach but they were having some sort of race. Wasn't impressed with Daytona - a bit like Blackpool in Florida :-)

Now my friend's hubby (in the maroon top) feels the cold and he wouldn't even paddle in the Bahamas when we stopped there last year on a cruise. Well you can imagine my surprise when I saw him paddling at Daytona. I just had to take a picture :-).

Thanks for reading and I hope I didn't bore you!! :-)