Ever See a Tourist Trap?

I have one last post about my time in St. Augustine and my stay at Faver-Dykes State Park.

I have to say that this state park was the least developed state park I’ve seen in Florida.

The roads were not paved. They were rutted and puddled and made of sand.

The campsites were also sand. When I went to back into my site, I had a dickens of a time getting traction, even with four-wheel-drive. I kept churning up the sand. I finally managed to get it shoved into the site although I was kind of on the wrong side of the site. However my power cord reached the pedestal, so I called it good enough.

When I left the park everyday, after bumping over a couple miles of ruts and potholes and splashing through puddles, I would pass a set of what can only be called Tourist Traps.

There are three of these where Faver-Dykes Road hits U.S. 1.

The sold fruit and nuts and juice and pecan logs and gen-u-ine souvenirs.

And gas for forty cents more per gallon than a few miles down the road in St. Augustine.

This was the real come-on. Indian River Fruit at $1.00 a bag.

This was the bag of fruit they were selling for $1.

They did give samples, though. I had a few slices of the different fruits they were offering and I asked for a sample of the peach cider they were selling. It was pretty good. I picked up the bottle and looked at it. I wanted to see what was in it. Oddly enough, it was made in Georgia. Hmmm…not exactly a good souvenir from Florida.

Ah! Much better! An alligator head – the ideal Florida souvenir.

I didn’t buy the alligator.