A tour of Castillo De San Marcos

Last week I decided to finally take a tour of Castillo De San Marcos. This fort was built in 1672. That just is hard to believe. Read some of the history from that link and from the nps.gov site. I enjoyed my tour, and I say tour, but actually I just walked about the fort by myself. They do have tours if you choose to do so.

Castillo De San Marcos

This inlet is what the fort was built to protect

A model of the fort

A view of a watchtower from outside

A view of a watchtower from inside (see the construction in the background? That is the Bridge of Lions.)


Another outside view

The outside walls

Speaking of walls, this is a close up of what the walls were made of...seashells.

Drawbridge door

This was a what was written on a sign under the next photo: "Historians have puzzled over the fragments of words in this graffiti for decades. The shaping of the letters tells us it is 18th century Spanish, but the pieces of words we can still see make no sense. Can you figure it out?"

Graffiti

Shelf in bunkroom

"I never saw a man who looked...With such a wistful eye...Upon that little tent of blue...Which prisoners call the sky."

¸.•*´¨`♥ Oscar Wilde (This was on the fort prison door.)

Powder Magazine

The room the above sign is talking about...where the bones were found.

Pews in the fort church

Church window

Barrels in the bunkhouse

On a table in the bunkhouse

Part of the bunkhouse bed frame

Stairs in the bunkhouse

For more than 100 years these doors hung at the sally port.

The lock on port sally door.

A window

St. Peter's Bastion

A closer look at a beautiful canon.

A few days in Orlando

We went to Orlando over New Year's with my daughter, her husband and his children. Orlando is not my most favorite place. Too much traffic. Too many people in the traffic that don't know where they are going. Too commercialized. But, in spite of all of that, we had a wonderful time. We didn't do any theme parks...only hung out at the pool, did some shopping, and enjoyed each others company. Oh, we did go to the Ice Palace. It was very different, and my thumbs froze.

First, here are some photos of Nikki, Robert, the kids and Blue, their dog.

"he followed the sun & she followed the stars & in dreams they listened closely for the beginning of all things, for that was where they knew they'd find each other"
¸.•*´¨`♥ StoryPeople

"I don't think of it as working for world peace, he said. I think of it as just trying to get along in a really big strange family."
¸.•*´¨`♥ StoryPeople

"not sure whether to smile too much because someone might put them on the hospitality committee"
¸.•*´¨`♥ StoryPeople

"willing to surrender for treats as often as necessary"
¸.•*´¨`♥ StoryPeople

"The future is a funny thing, she told me one day, because we're the only ones who care about it."
¸.•*´¨`♥ StoryPeople

You know my love for signs. Here are a couple from Celebrations...a most interesting little suburb of Orlando.

We had dinner on New Year's Eve here

Day Dreams

On Bloom & Front

After eating at the Boston Garden in Celebration, we took a walk and did some Geocaching.

"This is a Tale about a tail — a tail that belonged to a little red squirrel, and his name was Nutkin."
¸.•*´¨`♥ Beatrix Potter ~ The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin (1903)

The geocachers leaving the cache

The ice sculptures were amazing at the Ice Palace.

Snowflake

Ice bunnies

Ice woods

Icey penguins

Little santas in the gift shop (not ice)


This was the dome in the lobby of the Gaylord Hotel where the Ice Palace was displayed.

“Happiness is like a cloud, if you stare at it long enough, it evaporates”
¸.•*´¨`♥ Sarah McLachlan

The 60 foot Christmas tree at Gaylord

The Light Show after the Ice Palace