Sandersville, GA

Wrightsville, GA

Adrian, GA

Metter, GA

Richmond Hill, GA

Saint Augustine Beach, FL

Today was the day that I was transformed with a drink of the water from the Fountain of Youth. No, not really, but it was a pleasant day nonetheless.

I had read a few reviews about the Fountain of Youth Archeological Park, and the Tram Tour goes through the parking lot since it’s one of the stops on their hop-on, hop-off service. So my impression of the park going in was rather low but you can’t go to St. Augustine without drinking from the Fountain of Youth. And really, you have to see where Ponce de Leon landed supposedly looking for the fountain (there is no historical evidence that his mission was about finding the fountain of youth, but it makes for a good story) and Menendes stepped onto North America to settle the area around St. Augustine. With all the signage for the fountain along the way, I have no idea why PdL had any trouble finding the fountain at all.

The Park has been a tourist attraction since at least 1901, and in recent times has been developed to encourage tourists to come and learn more about the voyages of early explorers to the New World, (and Ponce de Leon and Menendes in particular) and about the way of life during that era. The building where there is a “natural spring” coming up and where you can take a plastic cup and take some water from the spring was first on my agenda. It was pretty hokey and the fluorescent light ruined if for me, but I played along as a good tourist and allowed the guide to take my picture at the fountain. It tasted salty and so far no effects making me look or feel younger. But I’ll update you if anything should happen. In this building and throughout the property they have a lot of static displays about early life in Florida and the Native Americans that the Spaniards encountered when they arrived.

Next I headed for the planetarium where shows were held only once per hour. It was a small theatre in the round with the stars projected on the ceiling. They explained the constellations and how the explorers used them to guide their way. It was informative I guess, but the effects were not Universal or Disney quality, shall we say.

They have a presentation in the “Discovery Globe Theatre” which uses a giant 2 story globe (which is veiled behind drapes and makes a dramatic appearance to the tune of 2001 A Space Odyseey) to show you the routes of the early explorers and the area of land that Ponce de Leon claimed for Spain. Although he called it Florida, the area covered all the way from the Rio Grande to Labrador according to the presentation. Then there is a video tape narrated by the archeologist that has been digging on the site for some years and who is responsible for the archeological dig here, outlining why they have determined that it was in fact a Spanish settlement rather than an Native American site that they first assumed it was.

I skipped the cannon firing demonstration, having just seen that at the Castillo, but instead went to see the musket demonstration. It was pretty low key but again interesting and informative.

Throughout the grounds are pretty gardens with artifacts nicely displayed, statues, Native American burial grounds and displays, and several peacocks strutting their stuff and perching in the trees. There are even 4 rare specimens that have a genetic condition called leucism whereby their feathers have no pigmentation, however, they do have pigmentation in their eyes so they are not albino. I’m beginning to think I should have called this the “Peacock Tour”!

It was time for lunch and I hadn’t been to one of the other beach areas I’d read about and so I headed over the causeway to Vilano Beach. I was surprised to find parking in the free public parking area, right near the walkway on to the beach, but then I discovered that the reason was that they allow you to pull your vehicles right on to the beach (for $8 charge). The beach here is very different and full of shells, both large and small. It explains a lot about how the coquina stone they used in the walls of the forts was created and why they used shells in the concrete in so many of the buildings.

At the other end of the island (large sandbar really) is a public pier and marina and I decided to try out the restaurant, again using location and ambiance for main choice criteria. The food was actually not bad and the margarita went down nicely, sitting in the sun enjoying the view of the beach. Although it started off cool this morning, it warmed up nicely and it’s supposed to be warmer still tomorrow. So it might be a beach day tomorrow. I haven’t been down to the St. Augustine Beach which is just a 3 minute drive from the campsite so I think I’ll head there tomorrow.

Vilano Beach, FL

Saint Augustine, FL

Saint Augustine, FL

Yesterday I awoke with more energy and it appeared the sun was going to cooperate so I took advantage of both and headed to Old Town to get some pictures.

I started the day at Castillo de San Marco, the fortification at St Augustine. Nine wooden forts built on this spot were destroyed in battle (including by Sir Francis Drake in 1586) before Spain finally gave orders for the fort to be built of stone starting in 1672.

The fort has the standard defence features, but probably the most unique feature of the fort is the building material itself, coquina, a local sedimentary shell-stone. It is very porous but after being quarried and left to dry it is very hard. It is left with little pockets of air throughout and these air pockets allow the stone to absorb cannon balls without hurting the integrity of the stone or wall. It took 23 years for the fort to be finished but once built it was pretty much impregnable. The story goes that when the British were bombarding the walls, after dark the soldiers from the fort went out and patched the walls, resurfacing the wall, and when day break came, there was no evidence of any bombardment which frustrated the British to no end.

Not only could the enemy not get the walls of the fort to crumble so it could be breeched, but the amount of cannon fire it could generate with it’s arsonal made it almost impossible to take. The Spanish soldiers spent hours doing cannon firing and musket drills and could load and fire quickly and precisely. Morale among the soldiers was maintained partly because they lived outside of the fort with their families and only served for a short amount of time in the fort rotating in on a regular basis.

The fort was also designed to withstand sieges. Two months of dry goods and live animals were always kept on hand in the fort, which was enough to hold them over until reinforcements and supplies could come from the Spanish settlement in Havana. The longest siege was in 1702 when fifteen hundred townspeople and soldiers were held under siege by the British for 50 days. The British gave up just as reinforcements and supplies were arriving.

In 1821 the fort was handed over by Spain to the United States and it was renamed Fort Marion in 1825. After that time, the fort was used as a prison, and here’s where the Seminole comes into the picture. The Seminole are Native Americans living primarily in Oklahoma, but with a minority in Florida as well. Historically, there were three major skirmishes with the Seminole peoples throughout history and after the Second Seminole War, the Seminole from Florida were expelled to Oklahoma. One of the leaders of the Florida Seminole was Osceola. He was captured in 1837, some say by being tricked into coming to St. Augustine under the guise of peace talks, and for a short time he was imprisoned in Fort Marion.

In 1861 when Florida succeeded from the Union, the Union officers from the fort were pulled north and the local militia were sympathetic to the Confederacy and took control of the fort. They left to fight in the Civil War, leaving only a caretaker couple in the fort. In 1862 the Union took the fort back with 500 troops simply by knocking on the door. The final and another peaceful transfer of the fort. Throughout it’s history, the fort never changed hands in battle. It was always through treaties of one kind or another kind of peaceful transfer.

The fort is smaller on the inside than it appears on the outside, but it is very well preserved and the static displays are well done, and being upgraded. The Park Rangers give talks a few times throughout the day just inside the gate and the ranger that did the one I joined was really interesting and helped to put things in perspective.

Parks employees and volunteers in period costumes also fire off cannons a few times throughout the day, which was really fun to watch. There is a board just inside the gate with a list of the times that happens, and it’s a good idea to head to the second level of the fort near the three functioning cannons to get a good spot to watch because there isn’t much room. There is an obvious white line on the deck that visitors must stand behind, so I just kind of hung out there as the time was getting close. As soon as the soldiers started their march upstairs for the demonstration, the place was instantly packed.

The U.S. National Park Service is celebrating it’s 100th anniversary this year (interestingly, Canada’s Parks Canada celebrated 100 years in 2011), and they made a point of asking for the public’s assistance in maintaining the historical assets that belong to the American people by obeying the park rules and not marring any of the surfaces. Unbelievably, just last week someone carved their initials into something in the fort.

After my tour of the fort it was time for lunch and I headed to one of the oldest restaurants in Old Town, Columbia. The garden courtyard at the entry is beautiful and the restaurant is made up of many small rooms, each appointed beautifully. It was a busy time so I opted to sit at the bar which I do frequently in nicer restaurants when I’m alone. I had a lovely, and huge salad called a “1905” which is one of their specialities and one of the best margarita’s I’ve had in a long time.

In the afternoon I headed for Constitution Square where I got some pics of the key elements there. Government House where the Spanish Governor read proclamations, and some of the monuments and plaques in the square.

Then I wandered over to hotel alley. As I mentioned in another of my posts, Henry Flagler really got the tourism trade going in St. Augustine when he started developing his hotels in the late 1800’s. First he built the Ponce de Leon. It was one of the first buildings with electricity and it’s own electric generating plant with 4000 electric lights, even in guest rooms that had to be changed out every 3 days or so. It’s architecture is beautiful, the detail work devine. Flagler had his buddy Louis Comfort Tiffiny do the windows in the dining room so you can imagine what they are worth. The only part of the interior I have seen is the lobby since it’s now a functioning college. The Guests needed to be invited to stay at the PDL hotel, and they could only come and stay for the whole season from Christmas to Easter. For that they had the honour of paying approx. $250,000 in today’s dollars.

Across the street Flagler built a second hotel, called the Alcazar which wasn’t quite as grand and didn’t require guests to stay for the whole season. But it included all sorts of fun things for the guests to do like a bowling alley, and a huge swimming pool. Guests from the Ponce de Leon were able to use the facilities as well.

Flagler’s friend, Franklin W. Smith, also wanted to get in on the hotel business and against the advice of his friend Flagler, he built the Casa Monica Hotel adjacent to the Alcazar. He over extended himself and when his furniture for the hotel got held up on the (Flagler owned) railway for 4 months and he was forced to use his own personal furniture to be able to book some guests into rooms. In the end, he had to sell the hotel, which Flagler kindly took off his hands for a “fair” price.

Saint Augustine, FL

The last few days I’ve spent exploring all around St. Augustine but not really taking many pictures because grey skies are not conducive to good pictures. I’ve compiled enough that I thought I’d share these and if I manage to get some better ones I’ll pass those along. You can see from the pictures why I thought I’d arrived in Spain.

It rained quite a lot over night and cooled down considerably, which I’m quite OK about. I prefer low 20’s to upper 20’s especially when you throw in the humidity. I started the grey, but usable day at a weekend Art Show. There were some really great artisans there, and I was sorely tempted but for the most part kept my wallet in my pocket.

I didn’t have a lot of energy today (could it be because I stayed up past midnight watching the last 3 episodes of House of Cards?), and I decided taking the trolley tour would be a good idea. I took it all the way around once, grabbed some lunch on St. George Street in Old Town and then took it around another two times. I found the second time that each of the drivers/narrators tells slightly different stories, so it wasn’t boring and it matched my energy level.

St. Augustine is the oldest continuously and permanently occupied European settlement within the contiguous United States. As you can see there are a lot of qualifiers to that statement, but in any case, it’s been here longer than most. The information I gleaned is no logical order because it came as the particular points of interest come along on the tour. So forgive me if this isn’t coherent.

Juan Ponce de Leon, who came north to St. Augustine exploring and claiming land for Spain, as you might expect has a huge profile in St. Augustine. All sorts of things are named after him. There is a statue of him at the north end of the main Plaza that looks quite small, but in fact is life size. Seems he was only 4’11” inches, but he insisted on being measure wearing his boots and hat and is often noted as being 5’4″ tall.

Here’s a short timeline as best as I can tell:

1513 – Juan Ponce de Leon, Spanish Governor of Puerto Rico, explored north to the area of St. Augustine and claimed the area he called “La Florida” for Spain
1565 – Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles started a settlement which he named St. Augustine (because they first spotted land on August 28th, the first day of the feast of St Augustine)
1668 – English Privateer Robert Searle attacked and plundered St. Augustine
1672 – Spaniards start to build Castillo de San Marcos for the first time
1763 – control take over by the British due to Treat of Paris when Spain ceded Florida to the British
1777 – Minorcans brought over to start failed indigo plant migrate north to St Augustine and establish their roots there
1784 – control returns to Spain due to deals struck with Britain and St Augustine languishes
1821- Florida becomes part of the United States
1845 – Florida becomes the 27th State of the USA
1861- Florida succeeds from Union and joins Confederacy
1862 – returned to Union control
1866 – Lincolnville area was founded by freed black slaves
1880’s – start of Flagler’s development of St. Augustine as a resort community

Also wound into St Augustine’s history are the Seminole Wars. I haven’t learned about those yet.

In the 1960’s, St. Augustine became a hotbed of Civil Rights Activism involving Martin Luther King Junior. This area was heavily involved in the Slave Trade and in fact there was a Slave Market in the main Plaza. Martin Luther King Junior often spoke at the Trinity United Methodist Church in Lincolnville where many of the Civil Rights activist activities were planned including the Woolworths Counter sit-ins. When we were in Washington a few years ago, we saw the counter from the Woolworths on the Plaza in St Augustine which had been moved to the Smithsonian to be put on display there. In many American cities there are streets named after Martin Luther King Jr, but there are only 2 on which he actually marched in protest, here and in South Carolina.

St. Augustine is built around the Plaza de la Constitution and there are many historic buildings within a few block radius of the Plaza, including three former hotels built or bought by Standard Oil co-founder Henry M. Flagler as part of his hotel empire. He also founded a railway to get his guests from further north down to his hotels in St. Augustine, Palm Beach, Miami and Key West.

Still around the Plaza de la Constitution are three of the original components:

The Basilica Cathedral of St. Augustine, originally established in 1565 and re-built by 1797, sits on the west side of the Plaza and is the site of the oldest Catholic congregation in America.

Government House is to the south on the Plaza (I didn’t get any good pictures of it yet) and it includes a balcony from which the Governor would read new proclamations to the citizens. Last year, when St. Augustine celebrated it’s 450th anniversary, the King and Queen of Spain stood on that balcony to speak to the people in celebration.

The Market Place, which is the first place in North America to use weights and measures to sell products, is on the north.

I haven’t visited the Castillo de San Marcos yet, but it has a prominent profile on the Matanzas River and I’ll get to it after I visit. I’ve included a couple of pics today as it’s really part of the old town.

Also prominent on the more modern water front is the Bridge of Lions, the first of which was build in 1927 and rebuilt in 2004. An interesting side note is that the young girl chosen to cut the ribbon to open the bridge in 1927 was still alive and in her 90’s when the new bridge was opened in 2004 and they had her cut the ribbon once again.

Today, the old town section of St Augustine is teeming with tourists drawn there by the history and ambiance of the area. St. George Street is a pedestrian street running east-west that is lined with shops, (many of which are jewelry of one type or another), restaurants and bars. (I’m reminded of St. John’s, NL) I’m sure every consevable tourist opportunity has been exploited here. In the old town section every time you turn around there is a fee to see the oldest school house, or the colonial area or the wax museum, or …. you get the picture. In the general area, there are also all sorts of other things like to see like the Alligator Farm, and the first Ripley’s Believe it or Not, competing trolley tour companies, a host of ghosts and graveyard tours, and all sorts of water activities. Not to mention a beautiful beach community just 10 minutes away.

Tonight as I write this, I am reminded of one of the reasons I’m enjoying my trailering adventure. All around me are kids playing (riding bikes, fishing, playing soccer), fires are getting started, smells of barbecues and fire cooked meals are permeating the air, and I’ve had 4 visitors so far. Three ducks, no doubt looking for a hand out and an adorable two year old from next door who wanders over to say hello from time to time.

BTW, I did get my chocolate covered key lime pie on a stick today. It was delicious.