The Chick-fil-A Experience in St. Augustine…and Visiting Hopes End

St. Augustine  –  10 kilometres walked, 2 miles by dinghy

This was to be our final day in St. Augustine as tomorrow we’d continue south. I’d grown to like this place more than I did on our first day, I think mainly because of those two incredible Flagler buildings we saw yesterday. And also because we spotted a young sea turtle at the dinghy dock.

 

Today I decided to make an appearance at Movie Club. This is group of movie buff colleagues at the City of Brantford I’ve been meeting with for about a year or so. Since leaving on my sabbatical I been in touch with just one person from work, so the City of Brantford has been very far from my mind. But not Movie Club. The ringleader Marta has been running it for years and every two weeks we meet to review a randomly chosen movie from this book called something like “1000 Movies to See Before You Croak”. This week the movie was The Jerk so I simply could not miss it, as I’ve been a huge Steve Martin fan since I was a little kid. So I surprised the gang with a virtual appearance, gave my review and rating (3 stars out of 5), then found three stray kitties in the backstreets of St. Augustine to practice my cat juggling. Just like riding a bike, it came back to me instantly. It was an excellent start to the day.

 

Today was Black Friday so Ana wanted to check out the deals at Target. It was an inspiring walk along US Highway #1 into Big Box Land. I sat on the old man bench outside of Target while Ana browsed, then we headed for a lunch place we’ve often heard about but never visited – Chick-fil-A which is a very odd name for a fast food joint. For the unitiated, it is pronounced “Chick – fill- eh” and enjoys great success in this nation of fast food junkies.

 

How was it? Well, it was okay. Not spectacular. Mainly because the fried chicken slab was served in what looked like a Mc Donald’s hamburger bun with two pickles. Nothing else. No lettuce, no tomato, no mayo, no nothing. I found a pack of mayo and mustard after hunting around the restaurant for a bit which helped. The root beer was excellent, though. But I think I was in the minority as the place was jammed inside and had a huge lineup at the drive-thru, and staff even out in the parking lot taking orders from people in trucks.

 

We spied an Aldi grocery store across the highway so went over there to buy a few bags of food, then happened across a West Marine during the walk back, luckily just as it had begun to rain. There, we picked up three dock lines for the price of two plus a boat spotlight. As usual, we looked like a couple of misplaced sherpas walking down the highway with bags slung all over the place, but we’re used to it.

 

After unloading our goodies we went over to visit John and Becca on sailing vessel Hopes End. As you may recall, these are the folks who have a boat identical to ours, just one year newer so we’ve been trading notes over the past months and were happy to have them on our boat a couple of nights before so they were anxious to have us over to show off their girl. It was awesome. Our one pre-dinner drink turned into a three-hour visit and they gave us a deep dive into their boat and its systems. It was very strange being on your boat when it’s not your boat. I made friends with their dog Luna right away and I could tell she really liked me because she’d goose my crotch with her nose every once in a while to get me to toss a ball which I did, obediently.

 

We said goodbye to our friends, but we’re sure to see them again in Bahamas as they plan to make their way there early in January. 

 

Our plan to head back into St. Augustine after dinner to see their Festival of Lights was thwarted when the temperature plummeted, the rain continued to fall, and our boat was cozy warm from the pizza we cooked in the oven so we bailed on ourselves and stayed in instead.