St. Augustine, FL - Lighthouse, Beaches & Pizza

St. Augustine, FL
Anastasia State Park

Beautiful Florida beaches that go on forever!

 

The beach the runs along St. Augustine is beautiful.  You can walk for miles.

 

Our campsite at Anastasia State Park, # 137.  It's a nice park, but getting a 40' 5er in can be tricky.  Many of the loops don't allow larger rigs.  For good reason.  Sites are small, roads are narrow, turns sharp and many low hanging branches.  Very nice though.  $28 for W&E.  They did have one of the better dump stations.  Placed where it should be, 3 stations, nice and big.  Great kayaking and beach access.  Internet was pretty good.

You are right next to town where you can go to the weekly farmers market.  Very large with lots of fresh fruit, veggies, fish and unique homemade crafts.

 

 

 

The St. Augustine Lighthouse is an active lighthouse built in 1874.  It has a great museum across from it and a wonderful restoration project.  It was just beautiful all decorated for Christmas.

227 Steps up!

 

Great 360 degree views from the top of the harbor, beach & town.

The working lens at the top.

 

 

This gal was painting a ship replica with the tiniest brush.

 

The view from the upstairs balcony of the museum looking down at the huge, twisted oaks covered in ferns.  Just beautiful.  They are called Resurrection ferns.  They come back each year with the rains.

 

 

 

We walked to the pier and watched everyone fishing.  There was a gal who had a shark on, but if fell off before I could get a picture.  Here's a pic below of some other type of fish.

 

They have a wonderful Farmers Market just outside the campground each week.  We picked up lots of great fresh veggies, fruit and some wonderful swordfish steaks.  Above is a picture we made with a spinach/arugula salad with blueberries, baby red potatoes, fried noodles, red onion, sunflower seeds and the swordfish grilled after being marinated in fresh lemon and limes and the other half in Paula Dean Rub.  It was DELICIOUS!!  All from the farmers market!  The dressing was Meyer Lemon Olive Oil with a squeeze of the lemons and limes.

 

We took a kayak out on the harbor behind the campground.  We tried to find our way through the grasses, but could not so we had to back paddle our way back out.

 

Some of the wild life amongst the grasses.

The san dunes between the harbor and the ocean.

Everyone having a great time in the sun.  Paddle boarding and boating.

This bi-plane was flying back and forth.

 

We tried to get in to the Castle but there was so much traffic and so many people right after Christmas, that we decided to pass.  The line was crazy and parking was impossible to find.

Beach Time!

 

Minions & Turtles. 

 

Surfing and hole digging.  Everyone was out and enjoying the day.



The beach was full of tiny shells everywhere.

 

 

Steve had a little hitchhiker.  A black swallow tail butterfly of some sort?

The fog was starting to roll in.

Walking the other way towards the pier, you could see the streaks of reddish orange areas where the shells are.

 

 

 

 

 

These folks were having a good time fishing.

 

Remember drizzling the sand to make cool shapes?

 

 

 

Going, going...

 

GONE

 

Time for some of the best pizza!  A meat style, and my favorite, several different types of mushroom on a garlic aioli sauce with a drizzle of truffle oil.  Best Pizza!