Living Our Dream

As we left St. Augustine for our Christmas preview at Disney, we had time to reflect on our second Christmas on the road. We are enjoying a simplified celebration with a minimum amount of fuss, and we have found it to be a great opportunity to better understand and enjoy the true celebration beyond the trappings and trimmings of the season. It has afforded us the opportunity to move past the familiarity that contributes to our missing the true wonder and mystery of what God did that first Christmas. We certainly miss spending Christmas with the family in general and Lora and J. Michael in particular; but we don't miss the snow and cold! However, it doesn't matter if you're enjoying warm weather or cold weather, we see the frenzy of the season everywhere. Our prayer is that you, too, will experience a renewed wonder at how and why Jesus entered this world as He did and that your life will be transformed in eternal ways.

It turned out to be a little longer drive from St. Augustine than we thought, especially with getting on the Florida Turnpike going in the wrong direction. After a slight detour, we arrived at Lake Louisa State Park mid-afternoon. Lake Louisa State Park is located about 30 minutes northwest of the entrance to Disney toward Cleremont, FL. Last year we stayed near Kissimmee. Lake Louisa is only a few minutes closer, but it was an easier drive and a nicer campground.

Lake Louisa State Park has paved roads and gravel pads with grass and brush between sites. The sites are very widely spaced and the campground is quiet. Most of the sites have water and electric only, but we got one of the few sites that have sewer. The sewered sites also have paved pads and seem to have been designated handicapped sites at one time, but there are no handicapped signs now and no one asked to see a handicapped permit when we checked in. The only minor complaint from Paul was that some of the back-in sites, including ours, were curved making it difficult to fit a longer RV around the bend.

Last year we purchased The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World, which we highly recommend. Since we hadn't plan to return in the near future and since we are always looking for ways to reduce unnecessary weight in the rig, we had left the book at the book exchange at a campground. So after we decided to return to Disney this year, we stopped in a book store and found Mini Mickey, which is a condensed version of the Unofficial Guide by the same people at about half the price. The information is somewhat reduced from the big guide, but Mini Mickey is smaller making it easier to carry it with us and was more than sufficient for us since we had been at Disney a year ago.

This year, we were more selective in planning our visit. We concentrated on the shows, including some of the street entertainment, and a little less on the rides.

One ride we didn't want to miss was the Safari at Animal Kingdom. Guests (as Disney calls its visitors - employees are called cast members) are loaded onto a safari trucks and are taken right out into the areas where the animals are kept. The means by which the animals are controlled are cleverly camouflaged and difficult, if not impossible, to see. Shown below is one of the safari trucks.

This year, there seemed to be many more animals visible than last year. Maybe it was the time of day or maybe it was the fact that it was cloudy this year that the animals weren't hiding to escape the heat. Unfortunately, since it was cloudy, it was difficult getting good photos. The camera had to keep the lens open longer because of the lower light level and this, combined with the movement of the truck, caused many of the photos to blur. At any rate, we did get a few animal photos including these rhinos...

...and this one of a lioness perched atop a rock.

Photo Album 026: Disney 2007 has more Safari photos.

One show we missed last year was Finding Nemo - The Musical at Animal Kingdom. We had dismissed it as being too juvenile. Boy, did we realize how wrong we were when we saw it featured on a program about Disney on the Travel Channel! The characters in the musical are puppets; but, rather than being hidden, the puppeteers are also in costume and are part of the production. The puppeteers use not only their voices, but also facial expression and body movements to help communicate the story. Unfortunately, since flash photography was prohibited, it was hard to get a good shot since lighting was low and the action was pretty fast. In the shot below, you can just make out puppeteers with coral and sea fans. A few of the main characters are at the left of the main stage and up on the ledge.

We also enjoyed seeing Animal Kingdom's Festival of the Lion King again this year. Festival of the Lion King is a big production musical with large, animated animal characters from the Disney animated feature Lion King. There are also actors in colorful native African and animal costumes. We had seats down on the floor right next to all the action. The photo below shows one of the characters on stilts towering above us.

Photo Album 026: Disney 2007 has more photos of the Festival of the Lion King.

Over at Disney-MGM Studios, we saw Lights, Motors, Action, which is an auto/motorcycle stunt show. They use specially designed and built stunt cars to show how some of the stunt sequences would be filmed for an action movie. There are car chases, motorcycle chases, jumps, falls, gun fights, all ending in a fiery finale.

After the stunt show at MGM, we took in Beauty and the Beast - Live On Stage. This musical is entertaining with colorful costumes as shown in the photo below.

Also at MGM is the Osbourne Family Christmas Light Spectacular. The Osbourne Family (not Ozzy) had a huge light display at their home in Arkansas. As their light display grew, so did the crowds. When legal action threatened to end the Osbourne Family tradition, Disney offered a venue to display the lights at Disney-MGM Studios. The lights are now displayed at The Streets of America, which is a replica of a New York street setting. Stringing of the over 4 million lights begins in August. Needless to say, the light display is very impressive! About every 10 minutes or so, the lights begin to "dance" to the Christmas music. There is even "snow" that falls from the upper stories of the buildings. The photo below shows a view down the main street.

More photos of the Osbourne Family Christmas Light Spectacular are in Photo Album 026: Disney 2007.

On the way to the Magic Kingdom, the monorail passes the Grand Floridian Hotel. We stopped briefly because we wanted to see the gingerbread house in the lobby. The house is covered by real gingerbread and they sell gingerbread cookies out of the back of the house.

As we went around the lobby, we paused for a photo with the Christmas tree in the background.

Then we hopped back aboard the monorail and headed for the Magic Kingdom. Although the Magic Kingdom is generally aimed at a younger crowd, there is still a real charm about it with Cinderella's Castle right in the middle. There are also a number of rides such as Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain for those who like things a little wilder. We generally avoid wet rides, fast rides, rough rides, and anything that has "spin" in the name or description.

This year, we purposely went to the Magic Kingdom later in the day because we planned to stay for the fireworks. Times for the fireworks vary by day from 6:00 to 9:00, so we planned to be there on a day when they would be early. We arrived just in time for the afternoon parade and got a fairly good spot in one of the handicapped sections so Margery could stay seated on her scooter and still be able to see. The photo below is a float featuring Mickey and several of his movies.

Check out Photo Album 026: Disney 2007 for more photos of the parade and of other views of the Magic Kingdom.

After the parade, we walked around a little and then took up a spot at the railroad station for the fireworks. We got there just in time to see them lower the flag in a ceremony where they have several veterans as guests of honor.

The fireworks were excellent as expected. While waiting for the fireworks, we watched the sun go down and the lights come up on Main Street and on Cinderella's Castle.

Epcot is probably our favorite Disney park. Paul especially likes the ride Soarin' which makes you feel like you are riding a hang glider with your feet dangling and with a panoramic view of mountains, rivers, ocean, and other spectacular scenery before you. There is even the smell of pine along a mountain stream and the smell of oranges as you fly over an orange grove. Although motion sickness does bother Margery a little on this ride, she gamely went along to keep Paul company.

Another attraction we really enjoy is Living With the Land. This is an indoor boat ride through the past, present, and future of agriculture. It includes Disney's demonstration greenhouse where real crops are being grown using the latest experimental techniques including various types of hydroponics. Hydroponics is a method of growing plants in nutrient solutions instead of in soil. Disney uses various methods to circulate the nutrient solution including the vertical tube shown in the center of the photo below. The cherry tomato plants suspended from the oval-shaped track behind the tube have exposed roots which can be seen hanging down below the plants. The machine circulates the plants through tunnels where nutrients are sprayed onto the roots.

They also use various methods of soil culture using techniques such as an overhead trellis or intensive planting to increase yields. Many of the crops grown in the greenhouses such as the bananas shown in the photo below are served in some of the Disney restaurants.

For more photos and information on Disney's greenhouse please see Photo Album 026: Disney 2007.

During the Christmas Season, Disney has a Candlelight Processional across from the United States Pavillion in the World Showcase at Epcot that is not to be missed. While a guest celebrity reads the Christmas story from the Bible, a 50-piece orchestra and a 150 member choir intersperse the reading with sacred Christmas music that ends with a moving performance of "The Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah. (There's not "Frosty the Snowman" or "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" to be heard!)

The other show at Epcot that is not to be missed is IllumiNations. This is a spectacular show of fire, water, lights, sound, lasers, and fireworks that is scheduled every night at 9:30 in the Seven Seas Lagoon, which is surrounded by the World Showcase. There are several times during the show when the fireworks are intense enough to read by. We got there early enough to get a front row viewing location and we could feel the heat from the flames.

As we made the rounds of the various Disney parks, we made a point of watching some of the street entertainers. The street entertainers quickly set up and begin performing at various locations. Even though it looks like the performance is spur of the moment, nothing in Disney is unplanned. There are schedules available to find out when and where the street performers will be. The guys in the photo below are called the JAMitors. They push a couple of dumpsters full of trash cans through Epcot and they look like a cleaning crew. When they get to their designated location, they stop, set up their cans, and proceed with an entertaining percussion show.

Then there is the group in MGM shown below called Mulch, Sweat & Shears. They look like gardeners with a pickup truck and trailer full of rakes and plants. They park the truck and next thing you know, there are amplifiers, drums, a keyboard, and guitars and they are singing away.

We also watched a presentation from High School Musical 2 in Disney-MGM Studios. It was obviously a promotion for the Disney movie, but we enjoyed the entertainment. The kids were so talented.

Speaking of the kids who are cast members, we overheard another guest saying they had talked to some of the kids from one of the shows. The kids can be in several performances a day. Between performances, they may change costumes and be in a parade or two. On top of that, they may also change again and be one of the Disney characters (Cinderella, Snow White, Goofy, Buzz Lightyear, etc.) who meet and pose for pictures with the children. They really earn their pay!

We enjoyed the slightly less frantic pace we had at Disney this year. We had plenty of time to see pretty much everything we had planned, including some shows we missed last year and several things after dark. But the Disney complex in Orlando is huge and there will always be more to see on our next visit, whenever that will be. From Disney, it's on to our winter destination in Bushnell, FL where we will spend a few months.

We find taking a guided tour is a good way to get a quick overview on our first visit to a historic city like St. Augustine. We took a tour last year in Savannah and this year in Charleston and enjoyed them both. We like the tours because they are a quick way to find out where things are located, to learn some interesting facts that may be hard to dig out otherwise, and to get an outline of the history of the area. So we wanted to take a guided tour of St. Augustine. There are only a couple of tours available, so we chose Old Town Trolley Tours. The tickets are good for 3 days, we could get off and on at any of over a dozen stops along the route, and we got a combo ticket that also included admission to The Old Jail and the Florida Heritage Museum.

One interesting stop along the tour is at St. George St., which is which is now a pedestrian mall. The buildings in this old section of the city have been transformed into quaint shops as shown in the photo below.

In spite of numerous attacks on the city and many fires and hurricanes, quite a few buildings from the 1700s remain. For example, there is the Gonzales-Alvarez house from around 1723, the Colonial Spanish Quarter which is a city block of nine historic houses and shops from around 1740, and the oldest wooden school in the United States. The exact date the old school was built is unknown, but it first appeared on the tax records in 1716. Many of the old wooden buildings such as the school are not painted. They are built of cypress and cedar which are resistant to rot and insects. The photo below shows the oldest school.

Imagine our surprise to find out that "snowbirding" is not a phenomenon unique to the 21st century. It seems that its origin go as far back as 1888! Perhaps was is unique is that it became more attainable for the middle class as our parents entered retirement. Henry M. Flagler had a huge influence on what is considered to be the golden age of St. Augustine. He also left a permanent mark on the entire east coast of Florida as well as much of the entire state. Henry Flagler was the business partner of John D. Rockefeller in the Standard Oil Company. After the death of his first wife in 1881, Flagler traveled to St. Augustine on his honeymoon with his second wife. He recognized the potential for Florida to become a winter playground for the wealthy and the rest, as they say, is history. In January, 1888, his Ponce de Leon Hotel opened and a second hotel, the Alcazar, was well underway across the street. The Ponce de Leon Hotel, which is shown in the photo below, is now part of Flagler College.

Flagler College is relatively young at 40 years of age. This co-educational, nonsectarian college provides "a rich liberal arts education in a small, supportive environment." Students provide tours of the Ponce de Leon Hotel but we saved it for another visit.

Louis Comfort Tiffany designed the interior of the hotel and included in the design are 79 stained glass windows. The windows shown below are in the hotel dining room (also the current dining room of the college) and are valued at over $6 million.

Unique to Flagler College is their annual New Year's Scholarship Ball where guests can welcome in the new year among the breathtaking Tiffany glass, elegantly carved columns and towering murals of the former Ponce de Leon Hotel’s Dining Hall. New Year's revelers can celebrating by getting a taste of the former luxury resort’s opulent heyday. Black tie, of course, is required. :)

Flagler saw the need for good transportation to get his guests to his hotels so he purchased the Jacksonville, St. Augustine, and Halifax Railroad, which was the first part of what was to become the Florida East Coast Railway. The railway was eventually extended all the way to Key West with Flagler buying or building hotels along the way in places like Daytona, Palm Beach, and Miami. Flagler encouraged settlement and farming along his railway and made many gifts to build hospitals, churches, and schools.

One of the churches built by Flagler is the Flagler Memorial Presbyterian Church which he built in memory of his only daughter, Jenny, who died while giving birth in 1889. The church, which is styled after St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice, was completed in less than a year. Flagler, his first wife and his daughter are interred in a mausoleum within the church.

Henry Flagler was quite the ecumenical. He also built the Grace United Methodist Church. Their original church and parsonage stood on land Henry wanted for his Alcazar hotel so he built them a new church in exchange for the site. He also gave land for the Ancient City Baptist Church and financed a new bell tower for the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine which is shown in the photo below.

Flagler also built the city a new jail. It seems his hotel guests didn't like seeing prisoners from their room windows so Henry built a new jail outside of town. It was quite attractive for its day and, in fact, first-time visitors to town who disembarked at the train station across the street at night sometimes went up and knocked on the door of the jail thinking it was a hotel. The Old Jail is shown below.

Here is Paul demonstrating where the term "jail bird" came from. Unruly prisoners were locked in cages which were then suspended over the prison yard.

Christmas decorating in St. Augustine isn't as low key as it is in Williamsburg; but being a historic city there is an absence of blow-up snow men, plastic Santas, and tacky glitz. The bed and breakfasts do the most elaborate decorating. The one shown in the photo below has combined Williamsburg-style decorations around the door with more elaborate lighting.

Below is another example of a bed and breakfast with Christmas lights.

In addition to touring the old city both in the daytime and at night, we drove across the bay to Anastasia Island to see the beach and to tour St. Augustine Lighthouse. The Spanish built a wooden tower on the island manned by a single soldier. The watchtower was primarily an early warning system to identify incoming ships, but it also served as a landmark to identify the city.

In 1683, the wooden tower was replaced with a sturdier tower built of coquina. The complex also included a guardhouse, a well, and ammunition storage, all surrounded by a high coquina wall.

By 1870, it was evident the sea was encroaching on the coquina lighthouse and construction of a new, brick structure was started in 1871. The new lighthouse was first lit on Oct. 15, 1874. Several years later, the old lighthouse fell into the ocean.

The photo below shows the St. Augustine Lighthouse with its distinctive spiral black and white paint scheme and red top. This design is used to identify the lighthouse in the daytime.

The lens in the lighthouse is a Fresnel (pronounced fray-NELL) lens named after its French inventor Augustin Fresnel. Fresnel lenses for lighthouses are essentially a series of concentric prisms and are ranked according to size. Sixth order lenses are used on lakes and in harbors. First order lenses are the largest. The St. Augustine lens is the same first order lens that was first used in 1874 and measures 9 1/2' tall. The lens in the photo below is a fourth order lens and is similar to the one used in the coquina lighthouse from about 1855 to 1871.

The St. Augustine Lighthouse is 165' tall and the maximum actual recorded sighting distance was 18.75 miles out to sea in 1911. We decided not to climb the 219 steps to the observation deck, but they did make for an interesting photo.

Margery is descending the stairs from the porch of the keepers' house in the photo below. The keepers' house is a duplex where the 2 keepers and their families lived.

The St. Augustine Lighthouse is still operated as a navigational aid and as a museum by a non-profit organization. Today it is fully automated with a sensor to turn it on at dusk and off at dawn. There is minimal maintenance required and the duties of the keepers (which in addition to lighting and putting out the flame also included carrying fuel up the tower, replacing and trimming wicks, cleaning soot from the lens, and winding the mechanism that turned the lens) have all been eliminated.

From St. Augustine, it is a short hop over to the Orlando area where we plan another visit to the Mouse. Last year we thought we wouldn't need to go back to Disney for a few years, but Disney did what they do best - they created good memories. We enjoyed thinking about last year's visit so much with all their Christmas decorations and programs, we decided to schedule a return trip for our next stop.

From Charleston, SC, we continued our southward journey stopping at Ocala National Forest where we stayed at Salt Springs Campground. While Ocala National Forest has a number of campgrounds, most have no hookups. Salt Springs Campground, however, has full hookups and is a nice quiet campground with paved pads and numerous trees - mostly pines and live oaks. Still, there are quite a few sites with potentially good satellite reception. With the discount we got with our America the Beautiful Pass, this was a nice place to chill out for a few days at a lower price than some of the tourist areas we had been in recently.

After spending four days at Salt Springs, we headed northeast to St. Augustine on Florida's Atlantic coast where we had reservations at Indian Forest Campground for a week. Indian Forest has gravel roads, packed sand/grass pads, and scraggly grass between sites. Indian Forest is very convenient to St. Augustine; but that means they are located on a main road into town with the accompanying traffic noise, especially since they are very close to the road. Many of the sites are shaded, but the owners graciously gave us one of the sites in the center of the main loop where there was full sun.

St. Augustine is the oldest continuously-occupied, European-established city in America. We had followed primarily British history up until now with our visits to the Historic Triangle of Williamsburg/Yorktown/Jamestown, Charleston, and with last year's visit to Savannah. We had touched on the history of Spain in the New World with our visit to the Alamo in San Antonio and to the Southwest in general, but now it was time to learn about Spain on the eastern side of the continent.

Florida was discovered in 1513 by Juan Ponce de Leon, whose name means Prince of Lions in English. Although there were prior Spanish settlements, they all were abandoned due to hurricanes, famine, and warring native tribes. The city of St. Augustine was established in 1565 by Pedro Menendez de Aviles. This founding date is 22 years before British "Lost Colony" on Roanoke Island in 1587 (when supply ships finally returned 3 years later, the original colonists had vanished), 42 years before the British colony in Jamestown, and 55 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

The 208' tall stainless steel cross in the photo below marks the spot where Pedro Menendez is said to have landed on September 8, 1565.

As soon as the landing party was ashore, they celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving and afterward, Menendez laid out a meal to which he invited as guests the native Seloy tribe who occupied the site. The meal probably consisted of cocido, a stew made from salted pork and garbanzo beans, laced with garlic seasoning, and accompanied by hard sea biscuits and red wine. If the Seloy contributed to the meal, the menu could have included turkey, venison, gopher tortoise, seafood such as mullet and sea catfish, maize, beans, and squash.

Although the thanksgiving at St. Augustine was celebrated 55 years before the Puritan-Pilgrim thanksgiving at Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts, it did not become the origin of a national annual tradition. During the 18th century British forces won out over those of Spain and France for mastery over the continent. Thus, British observances such as the annual reenactment of the Pilgrims' harvest festival in 1621 became a national practice. After the U.S. became an independent country, Congress recommended one yearly day of thanksgiving for the whole nation to celebrate. George Washington suggested the date November 26.

In 1863 during the bitter struggle of America's Civil War President Abraham Lincoln established the last Thursday in November as a National Day of Thanksgiving, making it truly a national holiday. The President urged prayers in churches and in homes calling on the "whole American people" wherever they lived to unite "with one heart and one voice" in observing a special day of thanksgiving, and to "implore the interposition of the Almighty to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it...to full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and union." We don't know how football got into it. :)

Last year when we visited Savannah, GA, we learned that Savannah had several forts to protect the new colony from the Spanish. In fact the British colonies of Georgia and Carolina were so worried by the Spanish that they attacked St. Augustine several times. Their efforts to expel the Spanish by force were unsuccessful. After the French and Indian War, the 1763 Treaty of Paris gave Florida and St. Augustine to the British. Florida was ceded back to Spain at the end of the American Revolution in 1783 in recognition of Spain's assistance to the Colonies during the war. A little later, however, Spain was being invaded by Napoleon and was struggling to retain its colonies. Spain turned Florida back over to the United States in 1821.

One of the reasons the British Colonies were unsuccessful taking St. Augustine by force was the strength of Castillo de San Marcos, a fort built by the Spanish to protect the city. For over 100 years, St. Augustine was protected by a series of wooden forts. Construction of a masonry fort which was called Castillo de San Marcos was started in 1672. The Castillo is built from a locally available stone called coquina, which literally means "little shells." Coquina is made up of fragments of billions of sea shells bonded together by time and pressure. It is fairly soft so it is able to absorb the impact of cannon balls without cracking making it an ideal material for a 17th century fort.

The fort is built in a star shape. The bastions projecting out from the corners of the fort provide a variety of angles of fire from the gun deck atop the walls, including the ability to trap anyone foolish enough to try to scale the walls in cross fire.

The entrance to the fort, which is shown below, was protected by a tidal moat and drawbridge.

Inside the fort, the chapel can be seen in the center of the wall which faces the entrance.

In the photo below, the white line just below the horizon and to the right of the muzzle of the cannon is the surf breaking at the mouth of the harbor about 3 miles away. This is just within range of the cannons.

Paul remembers his childhood visit to St. Augustine. The photo below shows Paul at Castillo de San Marcos in 1956.

Here is Paul during our recent stop at Castillo de San Marcos near the same location as the 1956 photo. The fort has changed a little since 1956. Paul has changed a lot!

Castillo de San Marcos is only a small part of what there is to see in St. Augustine. We think a guided tour is in order and will do some research to see which one we like the best.