—Our Trip to St. Augustine continued, a day or two away from the regular events of life for Ken and Rachael Woodard — (This particular day was June 30, 2021)

This town is a super cool destination spot. Lots of things to do are within a short distance of each other.

For us, this involved visiting Quilt Shops in the area. We knew we wanted to hit up Bee’s Quilt Shop and Studio. It was a delightful store. I can only hope that when we’ve been open for 9 years that we will as professional, helpful and smoothly run as this store in St. Augustine.

This store has a busy longarm division, with 3 machines going at “full speed ahead” while we were watching. The professional running the machines was efficient and competent. She was also friendly and introduced us to the owner.

We were thrilled to be able to spend at least 30 minutes “talking shop” to “Miss B” in her store there. She gave us lots of hints and encouragement. She was a real gem and we appreciated her helpfulness greatly.

We got out of there shortly before noon, and because we had eaten a large CFA breakfast, we opted to skip lunch and head into the touristy part of St. Augustine.

We purchased The Trolley Tour tickets, which meant we could rest out of the heat on a moving cool green train and be given a humorous talking tour of St. Augustine. Using it as a hop on, hop off means of transportation, we loved it! Mostly we stayed on, but we did hop on and off a couple of times.

Before we hopped on the first time, we decided to visit the Oldest General store in Florida - the General Store there in the center of train station hub. It was a fun tour where I was delighted to find old sewing machines, super old textiles and sewing machines. Talk about vintage! Enjoy the pictures!

Then we hit up a chocolate tour, where we learned a lot about chocolates from a very vivacious lady who could not possibly have eaten many of their chocolates, despite her apparent love for them, as she was tiny! It reminded me of the clip of the video of watching Lucy and Ethel at a chocolate factory. Our super cool hair nets, we were told, could be a momento keepsake of our trip, but we decided to toss them out after the trip was over, choosing rather to keep photos.

We actually got to see the chocolate factory at work. We ate samples, watched several videos and got to go through the “gift shop” which included lots more chocolates at the price of gold. We opted to save our money and not spend it on chocolates, as it was just too hot to indulge. And long ago, we decided that everyone doesn’t want us to bring them back momentos of our trips to give to them. So, we decided to take pictures instead and found some ice cream to treat ourselves to!

 We finished the day with a Ghosts and Gravestones tour. Since it was hot and daylight, it was kind of “lost” on us. However, there was a nice breeze and we had a good time talking to the tour guide, who was a transplant from Alaska and who loves it here in Florida! I kept looking for the ghosts she was talking about, but never did see or photograph one. I took lots of photos in hopes of catching a glimpse of one fleeing across the graveyard upon closer inspection. However, the graveyards were empty. It was just good, clean fun, and in a moving vehicle, it was actually pretty cool!

End of Day 3.. A very, very busy one….

Have you ever been to St. Augustine? Been on a trolly tour ride? What was your favorite part of the town?

Have a great day wherever you are reading this! Stay safe!

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store here!

Here’s one of the beauties we have!