Florida Day 5

Last night, G3 asked me if I would wake up early to watch the sunrise with him. I am usually an early riser, especially on vacation, so I said yes. This morning, I woke him up and we drove down to the beach but, unfortunately, it was cloudy.  G3 opted to stay in the car and sleep. I walked down to the beach anyway. There was a crack in the clouds, enough to let through a patch of pink and a patch of orange. I never saw the sun, but the colors playing on the water were pretty. Plus, I enjoyed watching the plovers play at the water’s edge. I love the beach, but I love it even more in the early morning before people arrive, when the only thing I hear are the crashing waves and the call of the birds.

We had a relaxing morning which is rather unusual for us. After the sunrise, G3 went back to sleep. I set up my hammock and read for a bit until I too fell back asleep and took a short nap. We had a late breakfast at the campsite and sat around on our new camping chairs talking while we ate and I drank my coffee.

In the late morning, we left camp and went to the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche at Mission Nombre de Dios. It is the alleged landing site of Pedro Menendez. He reached Florida on September 8, 1565 and later that day, Fr. Francisco Lopez de Mendoza said mass for the new settlers. It was the first Mass—the first European religious ceremony—in what is now the United States. From a certain perspective, it challenges the belief that Protestants got here first and that Catholics are the interlopers. After the first Mass, the Spaniards and the Timucuans shared a meal together. The interpretive signs make it sound like it was a peaceful gathering and maybe it was. But the peace could not have lasted forever. There are no descendants of the Timucuans today.

The signs at the National Shrine state that shortly after establishing the settlement, Menendez ‘removed’ the French from their settlement near present day Jacksonville. I always find it interesting the way historical information is conveyed and how the words chosen can alter the meaning or even the truth. Menendez did not in actuality remove anyone. He slaughtered them.

The Spanish settlement in St. Augustine was not without strife. The British were a constant threat. In 1586, Sir Francis Drake burned the city to the ground. Then in 1702, the British, coming down from South Carolina, launched an assault on St. Augustine, also burning it before departing.

Along with the National Shrine, a giant cross commemorates the first Mass and spreading out from the cross are the Stations of the Cross. Behind the Stations is a Rosary Garden. It always amazes me how religion mixes so well will death and devastation. The history of the Spanish conquest and settlement is one of murder and abuse, but the legacy claimed is piousness.

Not far from where Menendez landed is the Old Senator Tree—the oldest tree in St. Augustine. It is a Southern Live Oak, complete with Spanish moss hanging from its branches. There is also a palm tree growing out of the trunk. This is not uncommon. Since their root systems are so different, living oaks and palms can live together without harming each other. According to the sign, it is well over 600 years old. However, the same sign claims that Ponce de Leon discovered the Fountain of Youth, so do with that as you will. Anyway, if the tree is that old, how absolutely incredible is that? If only trees had the ability to speak. Imagine the stories that tree could tell. It has witnessed St. Augustine through the ages from an indigenous town, to the Spanish settlement, the brief stay of the British, and the vacation mecca it’s become.

What would a Jaeger road trip be without a trip to a winery? Neither Kati nor I cared for either the tasting experience or the wines at San Sebastián Winery. Only the muscadine grape grows in Florida, and the muscadine grape is super sweet—too sweet. Therefore, most of the wines were sweet, which we expected but they weren’t even a good sweet. One of the wines tasted like Welch’s grape juice. The dry wines were better but even those didn’t have us wanting to buy a bottle. To make the dry wines, they buy grapes from Washington, Oregon, and California. As for the tasting, there were too many people squeezed into a tight space and the woman doing the tasting was awfully fake. She was running through a script with a smile that was anything but genuine. And they gave us a plastic glass for the tasting. Even G3 knew that was tacky. I did, however, learn a bit about port wine. I knew port wine was called port because the Portuguese were the first to make it. I also knew that it was somehow connected to sailors. What I didn’t know was that wine would spoil on long sailing expeditions. Therefore, to keep the wine from going bad they started to fortify it with brandy. And that is how port came to be. I suppose that’s one positive thing to come out of the Age of Exploration.

There were two more forts I had wanted to visit, but my family was tired of forts so we skipped them. We did, however, get to the beach this afternoon. The water was so incredibly warm and pleasant, but unfortunately, it was relatively calm. I am glad we did get to go swimming. Being in the ocean always makes me happy.

Years ago, when G3 was two years old, my parents enrolled him in a Mommy and Me program once a week at Sacred Heart. His first day there, he met a girl, N, and they became instant friends. She was his first friend, the first person he decided he wanted to be friends with. And they were friends for years. Every time we visited my parents in the city, G3 and N would get together for a playdate. N even came out to Jersey to see G3 and to attend his birthday parties. Then six years ago, in the wake of the pandemic, N moved to St. Augustine with her family. At the time, they were only nine and ten years old and so they lost touch with each other.

This evening, when we got back to the campsite after the beach, I got a text from N’s mother asking if we were still in St. Augustine. G3 had found N’s mom on Facebook, told her we were visiting, and asked if he might be able to see N. She texted me to see if we were still here and to say that N did want to see G3. Therefore, we drove back into Downtown to meet up with them. G3 and N took off together to get ices and N’s mom Kati, and I went out for a glass of wine. It was an unexpected but wonderful reunion. We had fun chatting and catching up and the kids said they had a good time as well.

St. Augustine apparently is a great place for us to reconnect with people.