St. Augustine is a fascinating little old city. There are several historic sites worth visiting, an architecturally interesting and diverse downtown, great beaches, a lighthouse, a stone fortification, and much more. The famous “Bridge of Lions” is just one of the many unique things about this town, but it is currently being dismantled and rebuilt. We haven’t walked the town yet on this visit, but we may today.

Saturday afternoon we hit the beach. As I expected, it was nearly deserted. Floridians seem to think that the beach is too cold this time of year. For us northerners, an air temperature of 75 and even higher water temperature is summertime.

The beach at St. Augustine is shallow and hard-packed with sand so firm that you can ride a bicycle on it, or drive on it. Driving is not allowed along the state park seashore where we are, but it is a few miles down Rt A1A, and we took the opportunity to go a couple of miles in the Nissan along the one-way (southbound) “road” marked by cones on the beach.

Last time we were here, with our Argosy, we were very tempted to tow the Argosy along the beach road just to get some photos. We didn’t do it, but I think it would have been fine, given a 4-wheel drive tow vehicle for the soft spots. I wouldn’t attempt that with the Safari 30 we have now. It weighs nearly twice as much as the Argosy and distributes that weight over the same four wheels. The sand would have be very firm to avoid getting stuck. Perhaps someday after an exceptionally high tide packs the beach just right …

In the evening we took Emma to the state park’s Haunted Hayride. This was a real hoot. A local community group staged terrifying little scenes in the forest and got more than a few authentic screams from our wagon of kids and adults. Emma LOVED it. (In fact, Eleanor and I did too.) There’s nothing spookier than a dark forest with mangrove and oak draped with Spanish moss … a perfect setting for a creepies to come out waving machetes. Happy Halloween.