February 12, 2009: Touring St. Augustine, FL
	Return to the Index for Our Florida Trip

The first full day of our trip to Florida this time involved driving from Dallas to Tallahassee, and the morning of the second day was taken up with our drive from Tallahassee to St. Augustine.

We left Dallas on Wednesday, February 11th, at about ten in the morning. The first segment of our trip, which took us from about then until about 1PM, saw us drive from central Dallas east along I-20 to Shreveport, LA, around the city on the new bypass, and onto I-49 south.

From Shreveport, we headed south on I-49 towards Lafayette, Louisiana. There, we stopped for a late lunch, and then headed east on I-10 towards Baton Rouge.

The drive from Layfayette to Baton Rouge is an interesting one, as most of the trip is on an elevated roadway that crosses one of the largest swamps in Louisiana. This part of I-10 is actually quite old; this stretch has been unchanged since the first time I drove this way with Grant back in the late 1980s. At first I thought that Fred had not been on this road before, but then I found he had, although it had been many years previously.

The elevated causeway ended some miles west of Baton Rouge, and we began seeing since for both the city and the Mississippi River crossing. Then, after some more mile, we were there. The point where we crossed the Mississippi to enter Baton Rouge itself was just about the only place along this first day's drive where we took any pictures. Since I was driving it was Fred that took them.

If you will click on the thumbnail images below, you can see the pictures that Fred took as we approached and then crossed the Mississippi River just west of Baton Rouge:

We encountered a lot of traffic where I-10 goes south to New Orleans and I-12 continues on eastward. It took us the better part of an hour to make it through Baton Rouge, and by the time we were almost to Mississippi, the sun was setting. But then we had clear sailing all the way to the Florida border. We passed north of Gulfport, and on into Alabama and through Mobile. We stopped for dinner near Mobile, where I also took the time to make a hotel reservation another few hours east on I-10 in Tallahassee.

After eating, we continued eastward on I-10, crossing north of Pensacola, past Eglin AFB and then miles and miles down the road to one of the exits for Tallahassee.

We reached the Monroe Street exit in Tallahassee at about midnight, and it took us only a few minutes to find the Super 8 Motel and our waiting accomodations. We checked in, we relaxed for just a little while, I broke out a Diet Sunkist and we hit the hay.

The next morning, we tried to get an early start and were moderately successful. We continued east on I-10 all the way to the western side of Jacksonville. There, we took I-295 south around the city itself. Eventually, I-295 turned around east and crossed a body of water which was actually a basin formed at the point where the St. Johns River approaches the city of Jacksonville. There was a very pretty causeway across the water, and Fred took a couple of pictures as we drove across. You can see those pictures here and here.

After another mile or two, we hooked up with I-95 a good ways south of the city itself. It was only about fifteen miles to the marked exit for St. Augustine.

The St. Augustine exit was Florida State Road 16, and we drove about five or six miles east towards the coast. When we got to US-1 (the same road that goes all the way south to Key West and which was replaced for long distance travel by I-95), we turned south for a mile or so and then east again to end up at the parking garage for the St. Augustine Visitor Center.

Use the links below to continue through the photograph album.

	February 12, 2009: Touring St. Augustine, FL
	Return to the Index for Our Florida Trip