Another Month In Review

I'm kind of embarrassed at the fact that another month has gone by and I haven't put up a blog post.  I've thought about it several times, but always had something that needed to get done first.  Isn't life funny like that?

Let me see, what has happened in June?  For starters, my son E finished ninth grade with straight A's.  There are no words to describe how happy I am with how well he did.  I quickly signed him up for tenth grade and all the classes he'd need to take in August.  About a week after he'd finished, I got a call from the Florida Virtual School office saying that they aren't doing full-time online school anymore.  I felt my heart hit the floor.  No, don't do this!  Then the woman explained that I had to sign up for part-time homeschooling, which in essence is the same as full-time virtual school, except that I set the schedule instead of the online school.  I had to re-register him, which took a while but I was able to finish it.  We won't be using the same program as we did for ninth grade, which is kind of sad since my son enjoyed it.  But I'm relieved that we will still be doing homeschool.  My son did so much better and learned so much this year; I don't want him to have to go back to a school system he hated.

A week after E finished school, I had a week off from work.  Well, almost a week off.  My boss MM had explained that, while the tutors would have the week off, we would still have to come in and set up for summer tutoring.  I didn't mind, but she did.  She wanted a week off as much as the teachers.  So, we got to work early the previous week and did all the paperwork for the new session.  The only thing that couldn't be done was reminders - calls to the parents to remind them when their kids would start the summer session.  My bosses went out of town for the week, so I was "nominated" to make the calls.  I figured it would take me a couple of hours at most.  It took almost four hours, but it was one day and I rested that week, so I can't complain.

The following week, however, was pure insanity.  I signed up to serve at our church's vacation bible school (or VBS) in the mornings.  I had to be at the church before 8:30 in the morning to help with registration and sign ins, then I was off to the snack room, where I helped prepare snacks and clean up for the four age groups.  I was on my feet from 9am till noon.  Then I ran home, changed my clothes, ate quickly, prepared my dinner, and went to work from 1:30 till 7:30.  I'd get home, prepare the crockpot for the next day, go to bed and start the whole thing all over again the next day.  Add to that the fact that my monthly friend paid a visit on Thursday morning, and you can well imagine what my week was like.  I was thankful that I don't work Fridays, but we had our women's bible group prayer night that night.  It was close to home, which is great, but I was exhausted.  I'm surprised I didn't fall asleep during prayer time!  Actually, it was beautiful, such a lovely time with these wonderful women, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world.  In fact, if I had to do it again, I would do it all in a heartbeat.  Serving the kids was the highlight of my day, and I'm thankful I have the health and energy to still get it all done.

I went to NY & Co for some shopping because I had some City Cash that was about to expire.  It allowed me to get a couple of pretty necklaces that were on sale.  The original price was $25 for each; they had a buy one get one for $5 deal going on, and with my $20 in City Cash I spent $10 for the two.  I also picked up some pants for work.  I'd wanted to get some jeans but all they had was bootcut and I prefer straight leg jeans.  I also got some purses at Target.  One purse, in a pretty mint color, was $29.99; more than I usually pay for a purse but it's a lovely color and the perfect size for my wallet, umbrella, and bible.  I used it today for church and it's so springtime, I just love it.  Then my daughter and I went to Target today to return some makeup she'd bought that she didn't like, and I found a couple of purses on clearance.  One is black, the other is light green, and they were $7.48 each, reduced from $24.99.  Yeah, more my style!  I got a couple of tank tops too, at $6 each.  I like wearing a tank top with a cardigan for work because it's professional but still light.  One tank top is red and the other is purple.  I think I'll save the red one for July 4th, which is just a few days away.  Wow, the year is halfway gone!  Can you believe it?!

I also purchased some stuff from Bare Escentuals during their Friends and Family sale.  I had a $20 off coupon and they were offering 20% off and free shipping.  Works for me!  I got a cream concealer which I'd been wanting to get, a neutral eye kit with a 5 in 1 cream eye shadow primer, an eye shadow duo in brown and champagne (love!!) and a brown eye liner pencil (double love!!), and a sample Mineralixers kit.  Mineralixers is Bare Escentuals oil skincare line.  This kit brings the oil based cleanser, an eye balm and the 5 in 1 oil/moisturizer.  The 5 in 1 is my favorite; my dry skin appreciates it greatly.  It's not a greasy oil by any means.  I can use it in place of my moisturizer and it leaves my skin feeling smooth and silky.  The cleanser is good as a makeup remover - it melts the makeup off my face - but I don't feel like my skin is completely cleaned after I use it.  The eye balm is very nourishing to the delicate skin under my eyes, but so is their eye cream.  I'm not sure I like the balm more than the cream.  I'm glad I got the kit, though.  I've used it and my skin has responded well to it, which is good considering I'm struggling with adult acne.  It comes and goes; I can have days when my skin is perfectly clear, then all of a sudden I start breaking out.  It might be hormonal.  It might be my age.  Or... It might be that I've been having chocolate, which has always made me break out.  Which is terribly unfair.

I've been watching Poirot on Netflix.  A few seasons that hadn't been on Netflix before are on now, and I have been enjoying my favorite Agatha Christie sleuth.  I try to watch one episode a day.  It's about all I have time for.  It's a struggle not to fall asleep because it's late at night when I finally can sit down to watch.

Oh!  One more thing!  I've booked our hotel for our mini vacation in September!  We will be going to Night of Joy again this year, my son E, my daughter A and myself.  My oldest son R has to work, so he stays behind and takes care of Molly.  We will be staying at the Pop Century resort at Disney World, which is so cool because we've never stayed there before!  We got a great deal, $108 a night, which for Disney is a steal.  Just 2 days after I'd booked the room the prices had gone up to $114, so I'm glad I got it when I did.  We are soooo looking forward to Night of Joy - Skillet will be performing again, along with several bands we're eager to see.  I'm so excited!!

I think that's all the updates for this month.  I could say that I'm going to post more often, but...I'll say that I will try.  I really do enjoy recording our days and weeks.  I have to make an effort to keep my blog up to date.  Here's to hoping!  God bless.

The Old Jail

I've always loved watching shows like Little House On The Prairie.  I imagine the difficulties, but also the sheer simpleness of living in the 1800's, when folks were kinder, friendlier, more helpful to their neighbors and strangers.  A time when cyber crimes didn't exist, when men respected women and children, when folks lived by the Golden Rule.

What cannot be forgotten, is that evil has existed since the devil turned against God and convinced Adam and Eve to do the same.  Perhaps the crimes weren't identical, but they had their similarities:  you couldn't steal a car because they hadn't been invented, but you could certainly steal a horse.  Murders may not have been drug related but that didn't mean folks didn't kill other folks.  Bad men were around, and they had to be dealt with just as they are today.  Or, maybe not like they are today.

While in St. Augustine we visited the Old Jail Museum.  The original old jail was nearer to town.  This one was built to resemble a hotel, making it more pleasant to look at for the tourists who were coming to spend their winter holiday in St. Augustine.  I could not imagine anyone being a repeat offender (though I'm sure there were those who didn't learn their lessons the first time).  If living on a frontier or on a farm during the 1800's was hard, it was a piece of cake compared to being in prison.  There was nothing attractive about it.

We were greeted by a sign that was more warning than welcome.  "You're in my jail now" it proudly proclaims.  The Old St. Johns County Jail was built in 1891 by Mr. Henry Flagler, and was designed by the same men who built Alcatraz.  "Escape was impossible, regret was too late, and survival was not guaranteed."  Time spent here would be unforgettable, and not in a good way.

The jail served two purposes.  The right side of the building was the sheriff's home, which he shared with his wife and two children.  The left side was where the prisoners were kept.  Notice the pretty Victorian gingerbread on the front, rocking chairs on the porch, making the building somewhat attractive.  In fact, it was so attractive that visitors disembarking the train would often mistake it for a boarding house.  What a shock it must have been to walk up to the building and notice bars on the windows, and find out it was the local jail!

Sheriff "Big Joe" Perry was an extraordinary man.  Standing a whopping 6'6" and weighing 300 pounds, he was quite an imposing figure.  As a lawman, he took his work very seriously.  He once followed an escaped con all the way to Alabama to capture him.  No one was going to get away from Sheriff Perry.  No one.

Outside the jailhouse we saw some of the items used to put the prisoners in their place when they decided to "misbehave".  They were outside so that the inmates would be humiliated into obedience.  This contraption held a prisoner for a few hours at a time.

If that didn't work, prisoners were put in the bird cage.  They'd get locked up in this tall, narrow cage, then hung in a tree.  This is where the expression "jail bird" originated.  They would stay there for 24-48 hours, depending on how long Sheriff Perry felt was needed to "rehabilitate" the inmate.  Consider that, while food and water would be given, there were no bathroom breaks.  Whatever body functions needed to be taken care of, they'd be done inside the bird cage, in plain view.  No wonder Henry Flagler built the jailhouse a mile from the town center.  Not a sight (or smell) to attract tourists.

The St. Johns County Jail was a hanging jail, with a death row section and gallows directly behind the cells. What I found creepiest about this, was that the condemned man was expected to help build his own gallows.  They had to be rebuilt each time it was used, since each man was a different height and weight, and the gallows had to accommodate him.   Yep, those gallows were custom fit.  The idea was not simply to make the death row inmate suffer, but also to show the rest of the prisoners (who could see the gallows being built from their windows) that this sheriff meant business.  The jail was in operation from 1891 to 1953, and there were 8 hangings done here in all.

While hangings could not be legally photographed, one was.  A medical experiment was conducted to see how long it would take a man to die once hanged.  This was the last hanging done at the jail, once it was established that this form of death was inhumane.

The jail portion of the building was three stories.  The first floor housed women prisoners and the kitchen.  There were 2 cells for women, with 2 beds each.  Woman were not often incarcerated, sent instead home to their husbands or fathers, or placed in sanitariums.  Those that landed in prison were tough as nails, though.  Good thing, too.  There was no plumbing in the prison, only a bucket in each cell to use as a toilet, and the contents thrown out the window if you were in the front cell.  The middle cell had no window to the outside, only a window facing the front cell.  In such an enclosed place the smell must have been awful.

Part of the duties of the prison women was to help the sheriff's wife make the meals for the prisoners.  It wasn't too complicated:  breakfast consisted of grits, lunch was beans and dinner was, again, beans.  Male prisoners were sent to work as free farm labor and were given tac, a hard flat biscuit; so hard in fact that it could break a tooth.  How did they eat it, then?

Prisoners were given lots and lots of fresh ground, fresh brewed coffee, which they dipped the tac in to make it edible.  They were encouraged to drink plenty of coffee to keep them awake for all the hard labor they'd have to do while serving time.

Death row inmates got a fantastic view of the back yard - where the gallows were being built.

Across from the death row cells was solitary confinement - this was really creepy!  An inmate would be locked in a cell with no furniture of any kind, no windows, and just a tiny opening in the door.  It was bug and rat infested and totally dark.  Prisoners would stay here for 2-3 hours as punishment for bad behavior.

To ensure that the prisoners didn't escape when taken to their work assignments, ball and chains were used.  These were actually light to carry, because they were hollow.  Once the ball and chain was on the prisoner, however, the ball would be filled with dirt or sand, making it weigh over 60 lbs.

On the third floor of the jail we were greeted by a full size animatron of Sheriff Perry himself.  At seeing this life like moving statue I could imagine how scared the prisoners must have felt - especially when we're told he always had a rifle on him!  The animatron explained the rules of the jail, and why it was fruitless to try to escape.  I'm glad we were here as tourists and not overnight guests!

Conditions in jails of the time were deplorable.  There was no plumbing, the bathroom consisted of a bucket for every 4 men, baths were given once a month and all the men took their baths in the same bathwater  (Even worse, after the men were done, it was the women's turn to bathe in that filthy water).  There was no glass in the windows, only bars.  If they weren't suffocating from the heat and humidity, they were freezing from the cold and rain.  Meals were grits and beans unless someone was able to catch a possum, in which case they got to eat some meat.  While blacks and whites were segregated, the sick were not.  Diseases spread rampantly.  If the jail was full, there would be 2-3 inmates per bed, so it's no surprise that folks got deathly ill.  This was punishment in the worst form.

Just steps away from the prison cells, there was a complete contrast as we entered the house portion of the jailhouse.  This is the sheriff's master bedroom, a well-furnished and comfortable room with all the amenities of the day.  It was simply yet elegantly decorated.

Across from the master bedroom was the children's room.  While sparsely furnished, it was like stepping into a different world from the one we'd stepped out of moments before, a world of filth, sickness, and hopelessness.

I wondered, as we walked through the jail and saw the conditions in which the prisoners lived, if maybe this was one of the reasons there was less crime back then.  While the purpose of this jail was to punish and not rehabilitate, I couldn't picture anyone coming out of there unchanged.  I, for one, would be a model citizen after that kind of experience.

The Old Jail Museum was part of our Trolley Tour package, so we didn't have to pay anything extra to tour it.  While not huge, it was chock full of information, highly educational and still interesting.  It might be a bit scary for the very young children, but school age kids should be able to handle it, even if the cells with the animatronic prisoners was pretty creepy.  It was like stepping back in time, into a very different environment from what we're used to today.  A definite must see experience.

Ripley's Believe It...Or Not

Remember back in the "olden" days, before cable or satellite TV, before Netflix or Hulu or DVD's or any form of television viewing other than the 8-10 local channels available to everyone?  When the whole family had to watch whatever the parental units wanted to watch because they had control of the one and only TV in the house?  Yeah, we're going back in time....

There were programs that my mom or dad would watch that didn't interest us kids.  At.All.  News programs, for instance.  My mom watched the evening news every night, right after the cartoon shows were over, and we'd skedaddle.  Our toys had much better stuff to offer.

If dad was home it was sports.  Specifically baseball.  My dad was a baseball enthusiast.  None of us kids were.  He also watched Spanish channel programming, comedy shows, variety shows, some we'd watch, most we didn't care for.  Now that I look back, us kids didn't watch anywhere near as much television as kids today, mostly because there wasn't much to watch after the cartoons were done, and they were only on from 3pm to 5pm.

There were a few shows that we did enjoy watching as a family.  The Wonderful World of Disney.  Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.  And a freaky sort of show called Ripley's Believe It Or Not.

Ripley's showed the world that, no matter how weird you think you are, there is always something much weirder out there.  We were mesmerized by the strange discoveries of Mr. Ripley.  It was a sad day when the show went off the air.

What I never expected was to one day take a trip to one of Ripley's Museums.  And not just any Ripley's Museum.  The very first one ever.

Ripley's St. Augustine was originally Warden Castle, the home of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling.  Mr. Ripley was invited to her home once and fell in love with it; so much so that he tried to purchase it.  Mrs. Rawling said no.  He asked again several times, and the answer was always no.  After Mr. Ripley's passing, his heirs were able to purchase this mansion he loved so much, and convert it into a museum to show off the oddities he'd collected during his lifetime.

We visited the Ripley Museum on Saturday because it had started to rain.  I'd already purchased the tickets online before leaving home, and we'd decided we'd go when it wasn't possible to be outdoors.  We didn't think it would be the first full day we were there!

Walking in the door we were greeted by a statue of Captain Jack Sparrow made of car parts.  I was so excited to see that not everything in the Ripley's museum would be old items found by Mr. Ripley.  There are old items, but there are also newer and fun finds.  This was a great way to start our tour of Ripley's.

The first floor contained a few older finds, then we went upstairs and gasped.  A two story ferris wheel made from an erector set greeted us - a WORKING erector set!  We knew there would be extraordinary stuff to see, but this really caught us off guard!

"Strange Heads of the Primitive World."  Need I say more?

Isn't this a lovely castle?  Would you believe it's made out of matchsticks?!

So is this pagoda!

Can you imagine dating a guy that's 9 feet tall?  My poor little girl felt even shorter than usual.

It's Florida's golden boy, Tim Tebow!  This portrait is made out of air soft balls.

The Pirate Room.  There was all sorts of information on pirates, plus a laser shooting range.  My kids liked that!

After going through three floors of exhibits we still had much to see outside.  This horse statue, for instance, that is made out of old car bumpers.  Hi ho Silver, away!

This anchor was pulled out of Matanzas Bay in St. Augustine.  Many French soldiers were slaughtered in this bay.

This is just a small sampling of all the great things we saw at Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum.  Tickets were $14.99 per person but well worth it.  We spent over 2 hours seeing what they had to offer and learning about some of the crazy things that can be found on Planet Earth.  This was my youngest son's favorite place to visit...after the chocolate factory, of course.  We didn't see everything; there was lots to see and we were exhausted!  But what we did see was incredible, and we are glad we decided on Ripley's as part of our vacation.

The Best Idea Yet - Trolley Tours

Continuing my posts on our trip to St. Augustine...

We'd never visited St. Augustine, but one thing we knew: this was no theme/amusement park that we could grab a map of and walk around everywhere.  This is a city, with streets and traffic and homes and sites, and if we wanted to see all of it we would need transportation.  Of course we could drive around the city that we were completely unfamiliar with; or we could find someone more knowledgeable that could take us everywhere and explain what it was we were seeing.  This is one of those times when the Internet actually comes in handy!

My daughter was doing research on St. Augustine, and I asked if there were tours we could take that would give us an overview of the city.  She found several, and it took us about a week to read up on them before making a decision.  After looking over reviews, content, and convenience, we settled on Old Town Trolley Tours.  There were other similar tours, but we liked what this tour had to offer, and we were not disappointed.

The Old Town Trolley Tour of St. Augustine is, in our opinion, the BEST way to see St. Augustine.  We couldn't believe what a bargain it is, and how it would add to our enjoyment of our visit.

There are several different tours to choose from, including the Ghosts and Gravestones tour, which we didn't take.

There are lots of stories of ghost sightings in St. Augustine, not unusual when you consider how old the city is and all its history.  Not my cup of tea, but apparently everyone elses: the tours got booked solid every night.  We chose instead the Maximo package.  This included the narrated trolley tour good for 3 days - that's 3 days we could hop on and off the trolley at 22 different stops without having to drive anywhere.  Even nicer is the fact that the first stop of the tour was only a 10 - 15 minute drive from our hotel, and the parking there was free.  We were able to leave the car and see all of St. Augustine, saving on gas and no getting lost!  The Maximo package also included a tour of the old jail, the Oldest Store Museum, St. Augustine History Museum, and the Alligator Farm.  All this for $57.41 per person (tax included)!  My son's ticket would have been $30.90 had he been just a year younger, but really it was such a great deal, and all the folks working there were helpful, friendly, knowledgeable, and a joy to be around.

Here is where the tour started.  The white building is the Oldest Store Museum.  Three of the museums are right there at the first stop of the tour, making it convenient.

One of the first places we passed was the fort, Castillo de San Marcos.  It would be my favorite site to visit (more on that later).

When the settlement was first established, it was attacked by the French, by pirates, by natives, and eventually was burned down by Sir Francis Drake (British pirate).  After that, St. Augustine became a presidio, or walled city.  This is what the wall around the city looked like.

The Huguenot Cemetery is one of the haunted areas of St. Augustine.  Since the city was occupied by the Spanish, making the majority of the population Catholic, there was nowhere to bury the Protestant deceased.  In 1821 this burial ground, which is across from the city gate, was chosen just in time for a yellow fever epidemic to break out.  It's difficult to say exactly how many are buried here; for each headstone there are about 20 - 30 bodies buried underneath.

Matanzas Bay.  The word Matanzas is Spanish for killings or slaughter.  When the French came and began to occupy Florida, Pedro Menendez de Aviles was sent to rid the land of them.  The French were captured and asked one simple question:  Are you Catholic?  The French were not; they were Huguenots, a Protestant religion.  For this reason they were taken out to the bay and beheaded.  This is the reason for the name of this bay.

Villa Zorayda, the winter home of millionaire Franklin W. Smith.  It was the first building in St. Augustine made of poured concrete.  Its architecture inspired Mr. Henry Flagler to build similar buildings.  Today it is a museum.

Flagler College, named one of the top liberal arts colleges in the nation, was originally the Ponce de Leon Hotel, built by Mr. Henry Flagler when he came to St. Augustine to begin building a winter retreat for the rich.  The architecture is amazingly beautiful.

It's debated whether the Gonzalez-Alvarez House is the oldest house in the nation.  It is most definitely the oldest house in Florida.  The house is made of coquina, a limestone made of seashells and native to this part of the Florida coast.  Many structures are made of or contain coquina, though it was a tedious material to mine since it is very soft and takes a year before it hardens.  It is excellent for forts, though; cannon balls would sink into the soft walls rather than smash them, making the walls impenetrable.  We didn't have time to see the Gonzalez-Alvarez Museum home unfortunately.

Another claim to fame for St. Augustine.  It houses the headquarters for the Florida National Guard.

Here was something extraordinarily interesting.  The Old Senator is a live oak tree that was already in St. Augustine when Ponce de Leon landed here in 1513.  Students from the University of Florida (or Florida State, I forget which) did a study on the tree and determined it is over 600 years old.  It is a beauty and marvel of God's creation.

I wasn't able to get a picture of the entire tree, but just take a look at the trunk and limbs - incredible!  This tree is steps away from the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park.  Wonder if the roots reach the Fountain and that's what has kept this tree going for so long?

The tour also took us to the Fountain of Youth and to the original Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum, which I'll be posting about next.  We took the entire trolley tour on our first day, which lasted about 75 minutes, then were on and off the trolley for 3 days enjoying the many wonderful sites to see in St. Augustine.  I would highly recommend to anyone visiting St. Augustine, do the Old Town Trolley Tour.  It is indeed the best way to see St. Augustine.

Let's Start From The Beginning

On our first day in St. Augustine, we did the one thing my son wanted to do more than anything else.  We went on a tour of a local chocolate factory.  The Whetstone Chocolate Factory actually started as an ice cream shop.  The owners, Henry and Esther Whetstone, made their own ice cream and had a shop on historic St. George's Street.  Mrs. Whetstone came up with a fudge recipe that became extremely popular, and from there they moved on to make quality chocolates.  We got to see and experience the production first hand.

You can't have a chocolate factory without Lucy ;-).  She was the fun start of our tour.

Our tour guide was Josh.  He explained all the intricacies of chocolates, the difference between white, milk and dark chocolates, and gave us all samples to try.  We were in chocolate heaven!

We were taken inside the factory to see the chocolates as they were poured in molds and later wrapped.  Whetstones was a very large facility at one time, making chocolates for Nestle's, Hershey's and M&M Mars.  Today they are a small factory, producing chocolates for their stores in St. Augustine and for mail order.

We got to try the Mint Crunch shells as they came off the line.  Oh My Word! They are divine!

Not only did we purchase chocolates after the tour, we went back before leaving St. Augustine to buy some more!  I'm savoring a piece per day so it'll last; I'm sure once I'm done I'll have to order some more.  My son E surprised me by buying the darkest chocolate they sell - 72% dark!  It's too bitter for me but he loves it.  Both my boys prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate.  Their sister, on the other hand, bought a bag of white chocolate, which her brothers say isn't real chocolate (it is; it has 0% cocoa powder but it's made with cocoa butter so it's still chocolate).  As for me, I'm happy as long as it has the word "chocolate" in it!

Tickets for this tour, which lasts a little over an hour, are $8 for adults and $5.50 for kids ages 5-17, so we were able to get a discounted ticket for my 13 year old son.  We also received a $2 off coupon for our purchase of chocolates, which we gladly used.

This was a sweet way to kick off our tour of St. Augustine, but much more was in store!  Stay tuned!

Beautiful St. Augustine

Living in Florida has its advantages.  There are great places to vacation without ever leaving our great state.  After all, we are the theme park capitol of the world! (At least in my opinion).  My family has been to Disney World more times than I can count and we've enjoyed every single trip there.  We've also loved going to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure, SeaWorld and Aquatica, and the stuff closer to home like the Miami Seaquarium and Miami Metrozoo.  The problem with going to these fun and exciting places is always the same:  cost.  While many theme parks have Florida resident specials, these are only available during the slow season, not in the summer.  My kids really wanted to do something new and different, and I really wanted to stick as close to my budget of $500 as possible.  It sounded impossible to me, what with prices going up every time you blink.

Enter St. Augustine.

My daughter began looking for interesting places to visit, and St. Augustine was on the list.  We looked at all the places, sites, museums and tours, and found it to be very economical.  There was plenty to see and do on a budget, and while fun it was also educational, a combination I like very much.  I knew we'd probably go over budget but not nearly by as much as any of the theme parks would.  I found a great deal on hotels.com for a Best Western that ended up costing $65 per night including tax.  The room was cozy, clean, and very conveniently located next to I-95 and a short drive to our ultimate destination.  Plus the complimentary breakfast was the best we'd ever had - Belgian waffles everyday!  You can't go wrong there!

For all you Americans who only know what you were taught in school about our nation's history, St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied European established settlement and port in the United States.  What?!  you say; it isn't Jamestown, Virginia?!  No; Juan Ponce de Leon, then governor of the island of Puerto Rico, discovered St. Augustine in 1513 trying to find the fabled Fountain of Youth.  The natives had told him this fountain could be found on what we now know as the island of Bimini, but Ponce de Leon didn't know about the Florida gulf stream.  It took him all the way up the intracostal to St. Augustine, and it was there that Ponce de Leon claimed the entire North American continent for Spain.  Yep, Spain.  We forget that almost 100 years before the English began settling the New World, Spain had already taken possession.  St. Augustine became a port and settlement in 1565.  The Spanish had tried to start a settlement here before but due to increment weather and attacks from the natives they hadn't been successful.  Suddenly they found out the French had come to Florida and established a settlement 30 miles north in our present day Jacksonville.  The Spanish sent Pedro Menendez de Aviles to rid Florida of the French and get that settlement in place, which he did.

This commemorates the spot where it is believed Ponce de Leon landed back in 1513.  He came in April, during the Easter season, and the land was in full bloom.  He named the place La Florida in honor of La Pascua Florida, or the Festival of Flowers, celebrated in Spain during Easter.  At the time Ponce de Leon thought he'd landed on another island - little did he know it was an entire continent he claimed for his queen!

The natives took him to a fresh water spring which he believed to be the Fountain of Youth he sought.  Ponce de Leon died at the age of 47.  Whether that is considered eternal youth is subjective.  You can still drink of the fountain water; I did.  It doesn't taste good. At. All.  I called it swamp juice.  But hey, as long as it works...

The beginning history of St. Augustine is clearly seen here at the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park.  We paid $10.50 each to get in - the regular price is $12 per person but we got discounted tickets through our tour company (more on that in another post).  We learned about the Timucuan Indians that lived in the area when Ponce de Leon arrived, and the settlement the Spanish started here that eventually gave way to the settling of Florida, Georgia, and parts further north.

A re-creation of the natives living in Florida when Ponce de Leon landed here.

A Native American home

We got to see a cannon being blasted!  Well, it was just smoke and noise, no cannonballs, but it was still pretty exciting!

This enormous cross in the distance marks the spot where Pedro Menendez de Aviles landed when he came to establish the first true settlement in St. Augustine in 1565.  It is located on the site of a church called Mission Nombre de Dios (The Name of God Mission).  It was the first Catholic mission set up in St. Augustine to bring Christianity to the natives.

Here's something we found fascinating:  white peacocks!  There are dozens of peacocks on the grounds, most of them the colorful ones we're used to seeing, but there are two white peacocks which are equally beautiful!  No, they are not albino peacocks.  These are from India and they are all white.  Personally, I like the colorful ones best, but I couldn't help being awestruck by this stunning creature.

This beauty was roosting in one of the trees

This is part one of my series of Florida's history.  I hope to get more posts up this month with more of the wonderful places we visited and all we learned.  If Florida is in your future, take a trip to St. Augustine and visit the Fountain of Youth.  It's more than just history, it is a place to enjoy God's amazing creations.

Matanzas Bay

My youngest son and I (my how he's grown!)

With my daughter