A New Day, A New Southern Gothic Dream

I have finally returned from a week-long stay at my parent's recently purchased second house in Hastings. Its a nice place I suppose, small and cozy, but I'm not a fan of farm country. Its too middle-of-nowhere for me. My brother is over-looking the place for the next few years it takes for my mom to get approved to transfer to a Lowes in Florida.

So, though I am not a big fan of where their house is, I spent a day exploring beautiful historic St. Augustine with the beautiful and amazing Kat, and I fell in love with her company and this gorgeous and creepy place. 

Because the entire town is basically built on bodies.

First up on the list is the Castillo de San Marco, the Spanish fort which is three draw bridges secure. Yes, that's right, three. In a row. So secure that they slaughtered around 800 British soldiers on the ground surrounding it, and left the bodies there. Apparently you're not allowed to use metal detectors here because all corpses and their attached antiques are property of the Castillo and whatever historic society lays claim to it.

Pops and Brosef in the battlements

Katneto!

You also have pirates and anyone who worked against the Spanish crown put to death by a goddamn garrote, which is a leather strip turned once every 20 minutes until you died, usually by about 7 turns. These lovely events took place on the beautiful town common, which is currently decorated for the holiday season.

You can see the actual garrote that did this bidding at the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum, which has some seriously cool, creepy, and just awesome things and is definitely well worth a visit. 

This garrote was used in St. Augustine up until 1974. 

In my opinion, an excellent Yule gift.

KATNETOOOOO! I wanted to take her home with me xD

Also on my list of Perfect Home Decor

Mummified cat!

Actual gravestone inscription. When I die, there better be puns, or I will haunt your ass with bad humor for all time. 

And there's also the 1,100 people who died in 5 weeks from the yellow fever, but everyone thought it was Satan, so being the Spanish Catholics they were buried them in pits around the city, instead of giving them a proper burial. 

I went on a ghost hunting tour of the city, and actually had some shit happen, which was so freaking awesome, and I plan to do it again next time I go back.

In conclusion- historic St. Augustine is an enchanting blend of cobblestone alleys and corpses, and I want to live here in the very near future. Condos don't cost much more a month than my apartment.

Happy Holidays from Your Friendly Neighborhood Creep <3