St. Augustine, Pt. 2

When I said last time that I'd update "early next week", I obviously meant late the following week!

The rest of the trip to Florida was fantastic, with further visits to the beach, a climb to the top of the lighthouse, a horse and carriage tour of the city, and a great afternoon at the alligator farm.

Two of the highlights for all of us were the day we rented scooters and a visit to NASA's Kennedy Space Center. For those of you who don't know, we used to own a scooter in Barcelona and still miss zipping around on such a fun mode of transport. So, we couldn't pass up the chance to relive the experience and take a look around St. Augustine with the wind in our hair!

Kennedy Space Center (that's how they spell it, rightly or wrongly!) was an amazing day. There was so much to see that if we'd gone earlier in the trip, we'd probably have returned for another visit (the tickets are valid for two entries). We took a flight simulator to experience shuttle take-off on a moon mission; we were able to climb aboard 'Explorer', a full-size replica of the shuttle; we took a tour of cape canaveral, stopping at the Apollo center which houses the last Saturn V rocket built (but never used) for a moon mission. All of this fueled an interest in becoming an astronaut for Rich. Patrick wants to be one of the mission control guys (space travel sounds a bit risky). We also saw an amazing IMAX movie chronicling the discoveries of the Hubble telescope and the spacewalks needed to maintain it. Fascinating stuff.

St. Augustine, Florida

I’m happy to turn this space back into a travel blog for a little while. We’re all in Florida this week and next for a spring break vacation. First, a short medical update...

I should have had the third round of chemotherapy last week but my blood results showed that the platelets hadn’t recovered enough from the last round. Ordinarily the oncologist would have delayed it by a week or so, but as we were coming away for this break she has delayed this round until the day before we come home (Thursday 24th). There is also another issue with the scar from the surgery. It seems to have developed some sort of infection which the surgeon believes could be due to some necrosis of the skull. If that’s the case then he wants to operate and remove the piece of skull and reconstruct it later (sounds like fun!). Our hope is that it’s just an infection that will clear up of its own accord or with the help of the antibiotics I’m already taking. Apart from that, I’m feeling great and gradually looking more like I did pre-September (more hair, less portly!).

So, on to more important stuff... 

I write this from the comfort of a beautiful home in St. Augustine to which our next door neighbours very generously invited us to stay. St. Augustine is a quaint, European-style city on the Atlantic coast of Florida. It’s also the oldest city in the United States, settled by the Spanish in 1565 and still has homes dating back to the early 1800s plus a castle built in the 1600s. One of the things that Anna and I really love about Europe is being able to walk around a town centre - St Augustine and its cobbled streets are perfect for that too!


So far we’ve explored the city, spent an afternoon at the beach, visited the castle, and had lots of reading and relaxation time. In the next few days we’re hoping to get to an alligator farm, Kennedy Space Center, and go for a spin on scooters. I’ll try and update again early next week.

Here’s a shot of the boys enjoying the back yard in shorts and t-shirts.

I’ll sign off with Richard’s take on the trip so far....”this is the awesomest vacation ever!”.