I should have played the “On the Road Again” song when we left for our latest trip on Wednesday, but for some reason I didn’t even think of it until now. But here we go again…Traveling! We’re on the way to Miami with visiting two different national parks in mind. We left Chester about 6:20p.m. on Wednesday.

It was late, but that was ok because at least we’re on the road. Annette didn’t get off work with her after-school care job until 6:00, and 2 kids had dentist appointments that afternoon. We were only trying to make it to Yemasee, SC since we still have our campground membership and could stay there for free. After our requisite first night meal at Cracker Barrel, we made it to our campground around 10:45p.m. We were definitely a little rusty in our setting up routines, but we only hooked up to power that night, so it was fine. Following the chaos of getting 8 people ready for bed in a tight space, we finally settled in and had a great night’s sleep.

Our reservations in Miami didn’t start until Friday, so we had some time to get there. Still studying American history, I wanted to finally make it to St. Augustine, FL, the site of the first permanent European settlement in what is now the United States. We booked the same campground in Jacksonville that we stayed in last year, but unfortunately it was a good one hour drive to St. Augustine from there. After dropping off the RV and driving to St. Augustine, we arrived about 3:30p.m. That didn’t give us much time to see museums and such, so we prioritized going to El Nombre de Dios mission site.

Admiral Pedro Menendez de Aviles first sighted his landing spot on August 28, 1565, the feast of St. Augustine of Hippo.

Although he didn’t make landfall for a few days, he resolved to name the new settlement after this saint. Formal landfall was made on September 8, 1565, the birthday of The Virgin Mary, Mother of God. The first Mass at the first permanent settlement in the US was offered on the same day on a quickly constructed altar.

Since our family is Catholic, walking around the grounds of this mission and learning of the history here made by the Spanish was extremely powerful.

We first walked into the modern chapel of the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche.

The statues in the chapel were beautiful. Annette and AnaClaire both had their pictures taken with their chosen Confirmation saints: St. Kateri and St. Francis of Assisi respectively.

Next we visited the gift shop and then had about 10 minutes in the museum before they closed. The historian who took us through some of the museum was excellent! She showed us an artist’s model rendering of the landing and first Mass at St. Augustine.

She also pointed out the outer coffin in which Pedro Martinez was buried and discussed with us about how coffins at this point in history were only used for people of a certain societal stature.

Because his coffin was so short, it is surmised that he was only about 4’5″, which was evidently around the average height of a Spanish man at the time. It was also very interesting to find out that the native men that were encountered after making landfall were around 6 feet tall and mostly unclothed due to the hot Florida weather. I can’t imagine what the Spanish had going through their minds when they encountered these first natives, the Timucua. They were a peaceful people who dined with the Spanish on that first day of landfall.

After our too-short visit to the museum, we went outside to walk around the grounds, which were fortunately open until dusk. There were many things to see on the grounds including an earlier chapel of Our Lady of La Leche built in 1918.

There were two different sets of the Stations of the Cross that we were able to see, a rustic altar built to give visitors an idea of what an early altar may have looked like, an extremely tall cross, and a rosary garden in which we recited the Divine Mercy Chaplet.

We left Nombre de Dios mission in awe of its beauty and the history that occurred there. Our next stop was the beach – well after a quick run into Publix for ear drops for AnaClaire (she’s had a cold and now was struggling with an ear ache). We found a public beach access and walked down the boardwalk. According to Annette, she, “loves the beach but hates sand,” so she and AnaClaire decided to stay on the boardwalk while the rest of us took a walk on the beach and waded into the too-cold water of the Atlantic Ocean. I am also not a “sand person” (I have too many memories of sleeping in a bed full of sand as a kid), but I do want to experience things with my family, so I put up with the sand present in my shoes later. It was a beautiful evening on the beach and day at St. Augustine.

Back to the RV at the Jacksonville Equestrian Center for down-time, dinner, showers, and sleep. What a great day with Charlie and 6 of our kids. I sure do wish the other 4 were with us though. I do miss traveling with all of them.

Rebecca