As roadtrips go, it was a modest effort...Pt III

Waking in St. Augustine, with that utterly gleeful conviction, "something wonderful is going to happen today!" The Casa opened to the public at 8:45. I wandered round, looking in all the rooms, absorbing the displays and the ambience . The cold, heavy smell of stone, and the warmer smell of overheated NPS personnel in period uniform, tourists covered in sunscreen, salt air, and history. There's something about old places...and an awareness that as much as I love them, I'm lucky to be living in this time. Balance, and being happy with what is. On the way back to the motel, I discovered one of those shops with really neat clothes. Recycled sari fabric that had been turned into simple wrap pieces that could be tied many different ways. I came away with a beautiful, many-tiered skirt and a bandeau top. "Because the skirt is so much" It's true, the skirt is many different complementary colors and patterns, and swishes beautifully around my legs, but me? In a bandeau top? It IS a stunning color--and it will never be warm enough to wear it where I'm living now... Clearly I'm taking this whole "moving south" thing seriously. I went back to the hotel to check out, and happened on one of the proprietors(they take the morning shift). We had a great conversation about happy coincidences, and I assured him I'd be back for a longer stay. I spent the morning wandering round the old town, falling in love, checking out the neat shops (the sheer volume of creativity made me feel a bit giddy), admiring the wildlife, large and small--there were lizards everywhere!, lunch in a patio garden with huge hibiscus, more lizards, and mockingbirds everywhere. It was wonderful, and time flew, and...on to Savannah, where I managed to get lost on my way to Ft. Pulaski, (I always get lost in Savannah)