There are certain days of the week when you have a particular routine you stick to as much as possible. Saturdays, in our home (mobile or stationary), are called Pancake Day. We have had Pancake Day for maybe 10 years now and it is just one of those traditions that stuck. Another thing we do each week is tune in to our Sunday church service. In our current season of life, we cannot always attend our home church service in person, but we always make it a priority to attend our online Sunday morning worship service.

Somehow, within the past six months or so, we have added the element of Cinnamon Roll Breakfast to our Church Service on Sunday tradition. So, this Sunday was no exception.

We left the campground at Istokpoga early in the morning, before light, in an effort to get an early start on our journey to our next stop, St. Augustine Beach. The cold weather was headed our way and we wanted to make sure we could get out on the beach one more time before turning west to head straight into the cold front that was sweeping across the country towards us.

Church and Breakfast

Our Sunday Church and Cinnamon Roll Breakfast was enjoyed after the sun came up at Florida Turnpike travel stop. That is one thing that makes the vanlife concept so appealing to us. You can be virtually anywhere and still be “at home” because you are home. Although we are not trying to duplicate our “at home” life we still have a daily routine in the van too. We never skipped a beat in our daily living routine even though we were on the road and not at the farm. Marvelous!

Florida has many toll roads. The interstates in Florida, toll and not, are all pretty well maintained and are essential to travelers who want to get from point A to B in a set amount of time. We usually try to avoid interstates when possible and especially toll roads. However, depending on the destination and the goals, sometimes these roads are the best option.

On this day, we were not doing any sight seeing or day tripping in Orlando (sorry Mickey) and, since our mission was to get to the beach again as soon as possible, we were paying to be on the turnpike.

This turnpike, south of and through Orlando, was limited to vehicles with two axles. This is one place where not towing a trailer is a plus. Loki only has two axles, so we were able to take advantage of the fast road with virtually no traffic while passing all of Sunday rush hour traffic on the other side of the wall.

Buc-ee’s Daytona Beach

If you have not road traveled in a while, you may not know about the latest phenomenon in the interstate travel world, at least it is in the south. It is the Buc-ee’s experience. This crazy new idea reminds me of when Walmart first started spreading out from its Arkansas roots and essentially dominated the world with the introduction of the mega-box-store.

This newest business model in gas stations revolves around personal, vacation type travelers who want gas, clean restrooms, food, and perhaps snacks and souvenirs (or a million of any of the above). These “gas stations” are the mega-box-stores of the interstates and they are spreading fast. The business model is pretty simple, but ingenious. They pay their employees well, accept nothing but sparkling clean restroom facilities, have 100’s of gas pumps at each location, provide a full menu of Buc-ee’s branded fast food, BBQ, sandwiches, etc items inside, as well as a full trinket and snack food shopping experience. All of this is done while keeping RVs from staying more than an hour or so and allowing NO semi-trucks on the properties. It is as if you combined a massive truck stop with 10 fast food restaurants and a Cracker Barrel, and tossed in a theme park.

If you have the chance to stop at one and experience the near theme park experience, you should, at least once. Word of warning, though, expect very long lines of traffic getting into and back out of the parking lot. Keep your wits about you and practice patience. I am not an advocate for this franchise. In fact, there are several things, like the traffic issues they all seem to have, that I do not like. But the clean bathrooms are a must see, just once, because they really are the cleanest bathrooms I’ve ever seen.

On to the Nuthouse

I always knew that eventually I would end up going to the nuthouse. However, I did not expect it to be so soon, or for their marketing to be so upfront. We stopped off at The Nuthouse on our way to St. Augustine to try and pick up some unique stickers and, perhaps, some Florida grown fruit. Unfortunately, I don’t eat fruit and the giant bags they were selling were way too much for Scott to consume before going bad. I did end up getting some good stickers and a package of orange flavored gum. Glad I escaped from there before they claimed me for good.

Arriving in St. Augustine

Finally we arrived at St. Augustine. We were so happy to see the water, waves, and sand again. Anastasia State Park is a hidden gem in Florida’s Historic Coastal Area. This coastal region of Florida is also known as the First Coast, as it was the first coast discovered by the Spaniards during global exploration in 1565. The towns along this coast are very historic in architecture and they work hard to promote this feel in their tourism endeavors.

The beach was what we came here for, however, so we took full advantage of the access while we had it. After locating our campsite for the evening, we drove over to the main gift shop building to access the one boardwalk that leads to the beach from the parking lot. There are two boardwalks, both starting at the main building. One of the boardwalks goes to an overlook and the other takes you out to the beach. No dogs are allowed on the second one, of course. Florida beaches are not pet friendly.

We spent the rest of the day either stitching/blogging in the van, or walking on the beach. The beach goes on for miles and is much more deserted than the beaches in the lower Keys. Wildlife, especially birds, are so plentiful here. Oil laden bikini clad sun worshipers are not. Right before sunset, which is not really viewable at this park since it is on the east coast of Florida, we headed over to set up camp with the plan to revisit this spot for the sunrise the next day.

Thanks for coming along with us on this day. Tomorrow we get to see the sunrise over the beach, but the weather coming in made it a little less inhabitable. Gale force winds and freezing cold temperatures made for a completely different experience just a few hours later.

A Week Around Florida

• A Week Around Florida Auburn to Tampa Day 1
• A Week Around Florida Tampa to Tamiami Day 2
• A Week Around Florida Tamiami to Bahia Honda Day 3
• A Week Around Florida Key West to Homestead Day 4
• A Week Around Florida: Homestead to Okeechobee Day 5
• A Week Around Florida: Istokpoga to St. Augustine Day 6
• A Week Around Florida: St. Augustine to Valdosta Day 7
• A Week Around Florida: Valdosta to Eufaula Day 8