Florida trip(s)

For the past 3 years, I've been trekking from Virginia to Florida for at least 2 weeks during the summer breaks. I visit family and "tourist traps". The first year was due to our house being renovated. The next was due to family vacation at Disney. This year was a shorter visit for family visits. Anyway, driving here is nice because I can come and go as I please. Visit places I used to go. Visit where I want to go. Leave when I want to leave. I'm not dependent upon others to drive me somewhere because I flew down.

Driving down also has the benefit of playing it by ear when I'll leave. I am free to take the kids to the beach or some other destination, as I feel, such as Ft. Lauderdale Beach or Disney or Busch Gardens or Gatorama or Gatorland....the list is pretty endless.

On our way down this year, we stopped in St. Augustine, Florida, for the night for an extra day at the beach and wasting time until my sister would have more days off. It was nice. We went up in the St. Augustine Lighthouse. I would have liked to visit the Old Jail or the Castillo de San Marcos, but that may have been a bit boring to the kids. Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum may have been interesting, but alas, we didn't visit.

We first went to the beach at Anastasia State Park. The next day, we went to the public beach off of A1A near our hotel. Great place and has showers to rinse off. However, the restroom was not that great. The St. Augustine Lighthouse was great, even for a 7 and 10 year old. They climbed all 219 steps without complaint. We took some great pictures of the lighthouse and the grounds. Shopped at the gift shop and headed to Orlando.