Oak Hill, FL – Last Stop on the Way to Georgia

03/06/2022 – 03/13/2022

Our last stop in Florida is Oak Hill to squeeze in one last visit with the family here. The drive time over to the east coast was a little over 2 hours. We are slowly working our way into those 6-hour travel days that are just around the corner. 😉 I am thankful we decided to make this stop for many reasons. One, another cold front moved thru the NE and dropped some snow in the areas where we were headed. Two, loquats. Three, more time with family. And four, a day trip to St Augustine.

Loquats

Let’s start with the loquats. Have you ever heard of a loquat? It’s also known as a Japanese Plum. I don’t know if I have ever had a loquat. I vaguely remember my Grandma Hattie having a tree in her yard with fruit similar to this, but I’m not sure. So, I’m just going to say this was a new find for me.

Soon after we arrived in Oak Hill, we were greeted by Bill’s cousin. After she helped us back into the lot that would be our home for the week, she picked some loquats off the tree around back. It’s a little piece of fruit a about the size of a golf ball.  She peeled it and handed it to me to try. It was delicious.

After we got settled, it was over to their house for dinner. What was on the menu? Bill’s favorite, of course, Aunt Lucille’s Chicken and Dumplings. He does get spoiled by his aunt. LOL! And naturally, a southern meal is not complete without dessert. Lucille made a loquat cobbler, bless her heart. Let me just say, it was AWESOME! This led to making some loquat jellies and preserves. I helped prepare the fruit and was given a jar of the preserves and a jar of the jelly to take home. OMG y’all, these things are addicting. When they are cooked, they taste similar to an apricot.

Later in the week, we made some pizza for everyone and I decided to make a Loquat Crumble. (I just can’t get enough of them) The crumble was slightly different than the cobbler we had earlier in the week. Cobbler typically has a doughy, cake like topping, where a crumble has more of a crunchier topping. Then you have a crisp, that is similar to a crumble but includes oats and nuts. My favorites are crumbles and cobblers. Here is the recipe I used for the loquat crumble. It’s mouthwatering delicious and best served with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream. I don’t know why this fruit is not more popular. There should be loquat preserves on all the grocery shelves and loquat cobbler/crumble on restaurant menus.

A Rocket Launch

Our timing in the area was just right. Space X was launching a Falcon 9 taking the next string of Starlink satellites into orbit. We got up and headed down to Titusville to watch the 8:45 launch. Since Pad 40 was being used for the launch, we were able park out on the Canaveral National Seashore to view it. We parked on Biolab Road and waited. I enjoyed enjoyed listening to the birds sing and watching the ducks play on the water. A small crocodile was even spotted just hanging out in the water.

We were streaming the live feed on YouTube. Problem was, they were about a 30 second delay. Bill was going to video the launch and I was going to snap some pics. We were getting ready and counting down with the YouTube feed then I looked up and the rocket was already in the air. Bill had technical difficulties and missed hitting the record button on his phone. There were issues with sun glare on my phone and I could not see what I was taking pictures of. Suffice it to say, we got a lot of pictures of a pretty blue sky (sigh). Fortunately, the little rocket made an appearance in a couple of our photos, yay! Even though we missed the great shots, we did get to see the rocket launch and hear the rumbles of the powerful engines. It was pretty awesome!

St Augustine

When we came to Florida this year, St Augustine was on my list of “Things to See”. I wanted to spend a long weekend here, but it was not meant to be. We did manage to squeeze in a day trip, though. Well, half-day really. You see, a nice big storm system moved through the area early that day. We timed our arrival as the last band of the storm was leaving the area, which was around noon.

  Old Town Trolley Tours

Taking everyone’s advice, we purchased tickets for the Old Town Trolley Tour. The trolley takes you all around the historic district and allows you to get off/on at your leisure to explore the area. There are so many advantages to taking the trolly:

• It saves your feet and legs from having to walk everywhere.
• It will help keep your blood pressure at normal levels since you won’t be fighting all the traffic and pedestrians.
• It will save you time as parking is scarce.
• It is narrated and you will receive a wealth of information on all the history of this great little city.
• They sell discounted tickets for area attractions. We saved $2/each for the Fountain of Youth.

You can also save some $$ if you purchase your tickets on-line.

Since our time was short and I knew we were not going to get to see everything, we picked out our “must-do’s” and that is what we focused on.

  Fountain of Youth

Native Americans known as The Timucua occupied this land dating back to 2400BC. Ponce De Leon landed here in 1513 and named the land “La Florida” or Land of Flowers. On September 8, 1565 Pedro Menendez de Aviles founded St. Augustine here. This was the first and continuously inhibited European Settlement in what is now the US. St. Augustine lays claim as being our Nation’s oldest city (yes, I realize we were not a “nation” yet)

We spent about an hour wandering around here and learned a little about the Timucua people and their way of life when the Spanish settlers arrived. There is a planetarium on the property which presents a show on how the explorers navigated using only the stars. When Bill and I are stargazing by the fire, we often wonder out loud, how do you think those early explorers navigated using only the stars. Well, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to find out. What did we learn? We would be completely lost if stars were all we had to use for navigation. I am sooooo thankful we have GoogleMaps! Hats off to all the early explorers!

Another stop was the Spring House to drink from the Fountain of Youth. Pure myth, I don’t feel or look any younger. Next to the spring, a cross made from coquina was unearthed in 1874. The cross is 15 stones high and 13 stones across. Spanish explorers were known to make a cross when discovering new land, claiming the land in the name of the Catholic rulers of Spain. It is believed that the number of stones in this cross provide evidence of Ponce de Leons landing and discovery in 1513.

There are many old anchors and cannons displayed that were recovered from ships of this time period that sunk off shore. Another interesting find were these tinajones. You could say they are an early version of today’s rain barrel. The Spanish settlers would place these under the eaves of houses to catch rainwater. They were buried halfway into the ground to keep the water cool. The tinajones here are over 300 years old.

This was a great stop!

    Memorial Presbyterian Church

This beautiful church was built by Henry Flagler in 1890 as a memorial to his daughter who died in childbirth in 1889. Mr. Flagler, his first wife and daughter are entombed here. Henry Flagler was a key developer of the Atlantic Coast of Florida and the Florida East Coast Railway.  

The church is beautiful and worth a short tour. The stained glass and cross shaped chandeliers were exquisite. The windows located around the church recite and depict the Articles of the Apostle’s Creed.

  Flagler College

Henry Flagler is a name you will hear a lot if you visit St Augustine. Flagler College was originally the Ponce de Leon Hotel. It was built between 1885 and 1887 and is the first major building in the US to be constructed of poured concrete. The hotel was the flagship of the Flagler hotel system which would eventually extend along the east coast of Florida. He is probably the person to thank for making Florida a vacation destination. The property is beautiful. It is easy to imagine the “la-te-da’s” vacationing here.

 Castillo de San Marcos National Monument and Fort Matanzas

Two more stamps for the National Park Passport Book!

Fort Matanzas was built in 1742 at Matanzas Inlet. Its purpose was to protect St Augustine from the south. This is a small park located along the Matanzas River. There is a free, short ferry ride out to the fort and a self-guided tour. We skipped this as our time was limited.

Castillo de San Marcos was built by the Spanish from 1672 – 1695 to protect its Gulf Stream shipping route and St. Augustine. Once it was completed, the structure never fell in battle. There is a moat surrounding the fort and a drawbridge leading to the sally port. This was the fort’s only exit and entrance. The walls are 14’ thick!

From 1861-1862 Confederate forces occupied the fort. It was turned over to the National Park Service in 1933 and from 1942-1945 the fort was used as a US Coast Guard training base.

Along the grounds we noticed the placement of the Spanish flags from 1500-1700s and that they resemble the current day FL flag. I could not find any information to confirm if this Spanish flag was in any way used to create the FL flag, but it makes you wonder…

   City Gates

We ended the day going thru the old city gates, taking a walk on St George Street and having dinner at Mehans overlooking the Lions Bridge. The city gates were built in 1808 and were part of a fortified wall that protected the city.

Walking down St. George Street is like stepping back in time. The road is narrow and made of brick. It felt like walking down an old road in old colonial America, which I guess is exactly what we were doing. There are a lot of shops and restaurants here to check out.

All the restaurants had wait times of over an hour. We hadn’t had anything to eat since our Cheerios at 8 that morning and were now starving. Meehan’s Irish Pub was recommended and we stopped in. The storm that came thru earlier brought a cold front with it. Tough choice to make… we could wait 45 minutes for a table inside or be seated immediately at a table outside. Well, it wasn’t terribly cold, we are very hungry and we need to get back to Oak Hill before it gets too late. Outside it is. It was okay at first, but as the sun went down it got cold fast. We quickly finished our dinners and hoofed it back to our warm jeep.

Our day in St. Augustine was great. There is so much history here and we only tapped into a little of it. I am going to work now on securing an RV site next year so we can finish exploring this area.

I was telling my mom about our day and she told me I had already been to all these places. We were in the church, went to the Old Jail, Oldest School and the Fountain of Youth. We walked down St. George Street and Toured the Castillo. We also climbed to the top of the lighthouse. I do not remember one bit about it. I take that back, I do remember a little bit about the Castillo. Most of my memories are being at the beach, riding the waves on my raft and building sandcastles. Go figure, I was just a preteen! 😊

  The Last of the “See You Laters”…

Or as the Mills’ say, “Until we eat again”. LOL! Our time in Florida has finally come to an end and it is time to get on the road again. I was getting a little too comfortable in my home state. The roots were starting to dig into the ground a little. Time to get this show back on the road, start exploring again and put some more stickers on our map. There is still a lot of country to be seen.

Thank you, Oak Hill Mills, for a lovely visit and all the wonderful food!

We are off to Georgia and the Antebellum Trail. Stay tuned! Subscribe to the blog and receive an e-mail whenever a new adventure is posted.