We first decided we were going to walk over to the European Village and try out a new restaurant and maybe hit up The Irish Pub afterward. So, off we went. We had just passed the pool when I noticed a couple walking their naked dogs and realized it was Steve The Rattlesnake Guy with his wife and dogs. I called out to his dog (I don't know why....) and they walked over. We all introduced ourselves, told them we were new to Palm Coast and that we were walking over to the village. They suggested the usual that EVERYONE suggests, which is Mezzalunas (which is in fact, AMAZING), and then said what we REALLY should do was cross the bridge and check out JT's Seafood Shack.
We instantly decided that's what we would do. We've passed it like a hundred times going to the beach, it's always crowded AND it shares the name of a really good friend of ours. SOLD. We got there around 5:00 so it was still Happy Hour and Terry was able to try a couple of new beers. We ordered JT's Ultimate Steam Pot for 2. It was a little pricier than what we usually would order ($23 for 1 person, $46 for 2), but it was soooo worth it!
Crab legs (they're stacked by the way in the picture), mussels, clams, sausage, shrimp, corn and potatoes....AHHHHHMAZING! It was picture-worthy for Terry, so I stole it :) For dessert we tried their peanut butter pie that tasted like peanut butter fudge and had like an Oreo crust. We thought we couldn't possibly top this meal, so we thought we'd just continue down A1A and stop by the beach.
We had just pulled out of the parking lot (I was driving Terry's truck) when we decided we should just go to St. Augustine and find something to do there. I looooove driving down A1A. When we went over the bridge at Matanzas Inlet, we were glad we didn't do the beach stop. The water was CRAZY rough (but looked really cool). We got to St. Augustine and decided to veer off toward the lighthouse. In the very least, I had drank 3 diet cokes at JT's and wanted to stop for obvious reasons and the lighthouse happened to be the closest destination. Plus, it had been 6 years since we last went there and didn't really get to spend much time there since we were on our way back home.
I first made my "Pit Stop" and on the back of the door was a sign for the "Dark of the Moon Paranormal Tour" that they do Friday through Sunday after hours. I could not wait to get out and tell Terry. We signed up instantly (it was $25 per person for the tour only, an additional $5 to get into the park and play before hand). We did the extra $5 thing, walked around and decided to check out more of St. Augustine since it was 6:45 and we had until 8:30.
Driving into St. Augustine was a mad house. Kinda made me realize that DUH, Florida can be very touristy and it's the weekend in the summer. Parking was $10 everywhere we went, so we went back to the lighthouse and hung out until they opened the doors. Funny enough, we were only there for maybe 20 minutes before they opened the doors since the traffic was so bad in St. Augustine. OH and side note....we missed an opportunity to dress up like pirates because everyone was dressed in little pirate costumes in town.
Doors opened, we went inside and got little glow sticks to wear around our necks--yeah--this was our only light for the night (except the top of the lighthouse for obvious reasons)--and they were renting EMF detectors. For anyone who watches paranormal shows, it was literally the one that has the little lights on it just like in Ghost Hunters and YES Terry had to rent one (they were only $5). They were even handing out fudge samples while we waited (obviously that was MY bonus).
Our tour guide was Matt, and he reminded me of Barney from How I Met Your Mother because he had a similar personality (more on that later--coincidentally, it is completely relevant to the night's events). Matt was very entertaining--very laid back, but also very informative and not too over-the-top about everything that happened--like he didn't freak out every time the wind blew and say it was a ghost.
We first went to the upstairs of the museum which used to be the Keeper's house. Our little EMF detector went off a couple of times, but nothing major. We then went into the main level of the Keeper's house and Matt showed us where power sources were that would make the EMF reader spike (by the way, we had to turn off our phones before the tour to not interfere with them). We then went into the basement of the Keeper's house. To me, it was by far the creepiest park of the tour. Matt took 2 volunteers (turned out to be Terry and some other girl) to go into the other room alone and sit in chairs. They were there for like a minute before we joined them. I sat in the floor in front of Terry and we got to hear about a ghost named Pete that hated men and tourists but loved women. I made a mental note that I wanted to return there after the first part of the tour.
We then took a little tour of the courtyard and where they built boats, and finally we got to go inside the tower. Once we got inside, we all sat down around the well at the bottom, put our glow sticks behind our shirts, and just sat realllllly still and quiet. We heard all sorts of noises, and Matt said most of them were the wind and windows. We did hear some whispering, and on the way up some people on the side I heard it from looked freaked out and insisted that it wasn't them. We climbed allll the way to the top (good for working off that dinner!) and got to see an amazing view of St. Augustine at night and the lens in action.
After the hour tour, we then got an hour of "Free Time", where we could go literally anywhere on the property (trails, lighthouse, museum), and see if we could see/hear something. Some people may have braved the trails where you can hear kids playing and such, but I'm too scared of snakes to think about walking in woods at night so that wasn't an option! We waited around for Matt (he had the light) to go to the bottom of the lighthouse where we stayed a few minutes with 1 other guy. It was just me, Terry and that guy and we kept hearing this 30 pound bucket near the top moving. Very creepy. After a while, it got hot, and I wanted to go back to the basement.
There was about 5 people including Matt the tour guide in the basement, and I took one of the chairs and Terry took the other (there was a display case separating us). We were all talking about concerts and such, every now and then bringing up the ghost, and it didn't seem really unusual. I had the EMF reader and played with it a little with no activity and just kept talking. I don't really know why, but I started to feel uneasy, like I felt like I was being watching or someone was behind me (and there was a wall there), so I coolly said "Terry, can I come over there with you?" And I got up and started over to him and the little EMF thing went nuts--as well as Matt the tour guide's EMF thing. I had one of those moments where I wanted to blame the device and throw it like it was possessed--but fortunately I didn't since they held our driver's license--and it went off for a good minute once I got over there. Kinda weird. The only other time that the device went off was when I told Matt that he reminded me of Barney on How I Met Your Mother and he exclaimed that Neil Patrick Harris was awesome.
We left around 11:00 to drive back to Palm Coast. We had the windows down, the sky was clear and you could see all the stars, and the radio was up. Sure, the night was almost ruined when an armadillo ran out in front of us and there were cars on both sides and one riding our bumper and something tragic happened to said armadillo....but we can just forget about that :)
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