I’m beyond relieved that spring is finally among us! I was getting pretty tired of this winter and the ever-present snow that accumulated on every sidewalk. Since I traveled down to Florida for Spring Break this past week, it was nice coming back to Holland with hardly any snow on the ground. I thought I would dedicate this blog post to my adventures I had in Florida with my friend Audrey and her parents!
Friday
Audrey and I woke up at 3:30 AM or so and hit the road by 4:30 AM with her parents and all of our luggage. It was quite a sight having blankets, pillows, snacks and luggage all piled into one car! The first leg of the trip consisted of a lot of sleeping as well as a few pit stops at gas stations, Starbucks, Cracker Barrel, and Subway. It’s an understatement to say that my butt was sore after sitting in the car for 14 hours until we called it a day when we reached Atlanta. A horizontal surface never felt so good when I collapsed on the hotel room’s queen-sized bed after being hunched in the most awkward positions in the car. After we settled in, we quickly got some food at Applebee’s and watched some HGTV before falling asleep before the next day of car riding.
Saturday
This car ride felt much shorter since we were almost in warm, sunny Florida. After riding for another handful of hours, we finally arrived in St. Augustine, FL, where we immediately dropped our stuff off and went to the grocery store for some necessities and staple food items. The rest of the day consisted of exploring the area, going down to the beach and simply relaxing!
Sunday
This particular Sunday was very special because it was the 125th anniversary of the St. Augustine Memorial Presbyterian Church in downtown St. Augustine. The inside of the church was absolutely beautiful and you’d never guess who Audrey and I ran into there! We happened to meet a lady that graduated from Hope in 1950!!! After the service, we toured around Flagler College and the surrounding area, which was a ton of fun. Once we got back to our condo, Audrey and I thought we would take advantage of the warmth and lay out near the pool and soak up some sun… little did we realize, the sun was a lot stronger than we thought, so we got some pretty terrible burns. That night was very interesting in regards to putting soothing lotion all over our bodies and struggling to get comfortable in our beds while trying to avoid the burnt areas on ourselves.
Monday
Day one of shopping at the outlet malls! The whole day was dedicated to shopping and getting great deals at stores such as The Loft, Kate Spade, Saks Fifth Avenue, Gap, Nike and others that I cannot recall right now! After a busy day of trying things on, we went out to dinner at a place called Salt Water Cowboys, where the “restaurant” is literally a shack in a swamp! This is Audrey’s all-time favorite restaurant, so we obviously had to go. I was surprised by how many people knew about this place because once we finished our meal, the line was out the door and down the dock, all waiting to be seated at the next available table.
Tuesday
After still recovering from our nasty sunburns from Sunday, Audrey and I thought we should try to stay out of the sun another day. We ended up meeting up with Audrey’s mom and aunt and headed to downtown St. Augustine to look at the Lightner Museum. What was really cool was the koi pond, but also an building that use to house an indoor swimming pool but was converted to a restaurant. We ate some lunch there and it was really fun to say we were eating in “the deep end.” Afterwards, we wandered down St. George street going in and out of various shops and eventually getting some ice cream at Kilwins.
This sums up the first part of my trip. Stay tuned for the second part to my Florida excursion.
Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @hopeleslie15.