Mix Nate, Paula, and Kevin and what do you get? Part 1

Note from the blogger: Kevin took all these pictures, because I was on video camera detail and I only took two photos.


ST AUGUSTINE

City of historic stuff! And useless knicknacks displaying said historical stuff!

We basically set in our minds we wanted to go to the beach, but not simply for the beach. I think Kevin posed the idea, and I pretty much just agreed and tagged along with my two guys.

We set out early (well, I consider 7:30 early, as I am a creature of the NIGHT) last Wednesday and then proceeded to spend nearly ten hours (aka way too long) in the car. I mean, there are longer drives, of course, than a gentle ten hours with occasional stops to refresh ourselves. Not to mention I spent probably about three or four hours of it sleeping...but if you think I'm being unreasonably spoiled here than you obviously don't know how my friends (these two in particular) and I display our affection for one another, which generally consists along the lines of being as totally annoying as we can possibly be, like 'ohmigod, please shut up now before I strangle you to death with this package of delicious Twizzlers' kind of annoying is what I'm talking about here. And I'm just as guilty of it as they are, believe you me.

Most of the drive was just down I-75 through Georgia (the tallest state on EARTH), which was nice, because it's a pretty state and the roads are terrific. Somewhere along the way we got to joking about how the roads are so good in Georgia that anywhere else seems terrible--I mentioned driving up to Kentucky and being flabbergasted by the condition of I-65 (and I grew up in southern Illinois, where the only paved road outside of town was RR1, so that's really something here)-- and so somehow it got to be a joke about how the roads in Florida were made of rocks and sticks and bones, and that I-10 was The Road of Bones in particular. I think we were ignoring the fact that Siberia already has one, and that theirs is genuine. This led to me making the "Road of Bones" face, which I can't really describe, it can only be truly realized when you've been in the car for seven and a half hours drinking apple juice boxes and IBC root beer, hopped up on Oh's! cereal and honey roasted peanuts. The Face unfortunately does not translate into photographs, but we did manage to get it on camera. So at least posterity will know that great beauty even if it cannot be displayed on this blog.

Well, we survived The Road of Bones all the way to Jacksonville because we are awesome like that, and then we finally saw a St Augustine exit, just hanging there, just shining there above the road like a shaft of light from heaven. I mean, really, there were angels singing, and I'm not just talking about Sam Beam. Once we got on 295 it was just a quick jaunt around the city to I-95 and then south from there some twenty-odd miles and THEN--dun da dun-- There we were, St. Augustine.

Of course, it was pouring. Literally, pouring. Of course.

Between the three of us squinting out the windows, peering through the torrential downpour for the road signs we somehow managed to find our way to the beachfront and our hotel. We're lucky it was on A1A. We pulled in and Nathan was brave enough to jump out of the car to go check us in. Not that it mattered, really, because Kevin and I parked and then decided we'd run inside too, a completely useless gesture. We picked up our room keys and a parking permit that let us park in the parking lot around the back, which was not so much a parking lot as it was a lake comparable to Okechobee. Seriously, I think it was Okechobee. Crazy Florida and its being nearly sea-level...I think we parked in about four inches of standing water, all I know it it completely covered my feet and went partway up my calves. I was wearing jeans (because I always wear jeans, I own one pair of shorts and I wear them on my jean-warshing day) and it soaked them up to my knees. Three days later that pair still wasn't dry. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. We squished our way up to our room in our wet clothes, and it wasn't a bad room. It was a Holiday Inn, so it was about what you would expect. Things were clean and the beds were comfy, and that's all you need, really.

Kevin and I decided to brave it out to go get as much stuff out of the car as we could, but Nate decided to stay in the room and get his stuff later. He was bummed out about the weather, but Kevin and I kept reminding him that it wasn't going to rain continuously for 72 hours there on the coast, and that, really now, it was just a bit of rain, right? We ran out to the car and grabbed some bags and ran back in, and then set out to get the rest of it we couldn't carry the first time through, and I swear to God, immediately after we pulled all that stuff out of the car it stopped raining. It was like, torrential downpour, blink, nothing. Jee-zus. If we had gotten there twenty minutes later it wouldn't have mattered at all.

Well, we decided that we'd go check out the beach in the light smattering of precipitaion that continued...We all changed into our various swim attire, though I was a little embarrassed because I had one of those maxiumum cleavage swimsuits and I felt a little silly. But how can I feel silly about myself when I've got a guy like Nathan around, seriously.

We ran about on the beach for a time, and I nervously picked about in the water while the boys ran amuck. I kept saying things like "look at those waves, please don't go out to far, I don't want you to drown or get eaten by a shark, watch out for jellyfish!" because I'm half-worrywart, on my mother's side. Unfortunately there were no pictures taken at this time because it was still kind of raining (more of a occasional splattering, really) and we didn't want our Precious Electronic Equipment (tm) to get damaged. After dipping in the pool for a time, and learning Nathan doesn't know how to swim (!), we decided to get something to eat. I was ravenous and getting pretty grouchy, so we looked through the phonebook to find a place that sounded good and was on A1A. We picked some place called Papagallos, but when we went to look for it, it kind of...er...wasn't there. Nathan ran into a hotel and got directions to another place called Sunset Grille, which, despite being crazy overpriced, was delicious. We all shared this artichoke, spinach, crab fondue thing (oh my lord), and then I got lobster ravioli. Oh man. That ravioli. Oh man. If Bush wasn't proposing that amendment to make marriage between a man and a woman, you'd better believe...

After that I was damn tired, because I have sleeping habits that no sane person could abide by, so I let to boys go out to run on the beach (they apparently made a very short zombie movie using the video camera and Nathan's shoe) while I took a nice hot shower and slipped into my pajamas. When the boys came back in we watched the Daily Show and then decided to call it a night. BEFORE MIDNIGHT?! GASP! We are all getting so old...



We woke up the next day and decided to make our way down to the beach to take some nice pictures, as it was clearing up from the previous evening. It was still kind of cloudy, but things were looking promising. About this time came the point when I took my two pictures, because the sea beneath blue sky and clouds is one of those things you just feel you have to take a picture of, and then later, when you look at the picture, you are always disappointed, because it never compares. Unfortunately my two little sea photos did not turn out, which is why they are not here when Kevin snapped this rather nice one.

He also seems to have a knack for taking pictures of me looking displeased. I promise I wasn't unhappy! I promise I had a great time, honest! Somehow he just times it right when I have the look on my face like, 'Oh gee, the ocean, big whoop, I have only been landlocked since the day I was born'. It isn't like that, I can assure you.





Heads up, because in the next part, I am totally a pirate.