Monday was just one quick stop at the Daytona International Speedway! Wish we had had time to take a tour, I think the trams actually drive ON the track so you can see how it curves up the wall!
Tuesday we saw fort after fort after fort, all pre-Revolutionary, from the time period of Spain, France, and Britain trying to stake a claim in the New World!
The British laid siege to St. Augustine, Fort Matanzas was one of the Spanish forts helping to protect St. Augustine. We got to take a ferry ride over to the fort.
Spanish military flag flying over the fort, you could climb clear up to where the flag was flying
We drove over a drawbridge to get there and come back and got to watch it open to let a sailboat through (you can see the mast to the left, between the light pole and the drawbridge)
Our next stop was Castillo de San Marcos IN St. Augustine
Fort Matanzas and Castillo de San Marcos were both forts that were restored. It was really interesting to walk around these forts built in the 1700s!
They are built from coquina, a limestone that mostly consists of crushed shells
There was a drawbridge, look at the contraption across the top (kind of hard to see), it would come down as the drawbridge came up, if you were in between... SQUISH!
We walked around the outside of the fort
And we went to find the Zero Milestone for the Old Spanish Trail. Guess we should go find the other end in San Diego!
We ended our day at Fort Caroline, a French fort. This one was a reconstruction.
It was a triangular shaped fort
We ended our day by driving out of Florida...
...and into Georgia! Interestingly, "Georgia on My Mind" was sung by Ray Charles who was actually born in Florida!
Wednesday we went to the mainland visitor center for Cumberland Island National Seashore
They had a tide clock outside!
Sadly, we didn't have ferry reservations OR time to go out to the island. You can camp, hike, there are historic buildings AND wild horses out there!
We did spent some serious time at Fort Frederica, mostly ruins and really cool to walk around
For months we've encountered lots of Spanish moss, this was one of the more impressive moss covered trees, especially with vine/branches looping down below
All the ruins were filled with oyster shells to keep the weeds/grass down
Fort Caroline
The soldiers barracks
The coolest thing of all were the Junior Ranger booklets--they had "primary source" documents in them
And each kid got a rucksack to take as they walked the grounds and did their Junior Ranger booklets
See all the cool stuff in the rucksack?
Thursday we jumped ahead almost 100 years and went to Fort Pulaski, a Civil War-era fort
This fort had tunnels in a triangular area in front of the gate to help guard it, also, the tunnels were the powder magazines to store all the ammunition!
We got to explore some of the tunnels!
The moat around the fort
Inside the fort, you could walk around the ground level or go up top and look out over the fort, inside and out
Those grey doors are the section of the fort where the Confederates were kept as prisoners after surrendering and also the section that was blasted through
The cannons were on a contraption that let it roll from side to side. See the semicircle groove in the floor? The cannons would roll sideways along that so the soldiers could aim it
This fort surrendered to Union forces after they were blasted almost to smithereens. On the outside of the fort, you can see the damage--there are cannon ports and then there are cannon ball holes
The brighter red brick on the right was restored, the damage was from cannonballs
Look closely, that one hole still has shot stuck in it!
A wider view of the damage. That brighter red brick was an area of the fort that was blasted ALL the way through. It was so damaged that cannon shot was ending up on the OTHER side of the fort, near the powder magazines. The Confederates surrendered because one well-aimed shot would have hit their ammunitions and blown the entire fort sky high
More damage, see where the wall was shot away around the cannons on top?
We headed into Savannah next, just doing some drive-bys of historical sites, like Juliette Low's birthplace--she's the one who founded the Girl Scouts
We also went by the first headquarters of the Girl Scouts
And went to see where the Forrest Gump bench sat for the movie, you have to pay to go into a museum to see the actual bench.
If you've ever read the book (or seen the movie) Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, this is the actual house one of the main characters lived in and where many of the events took place.
Saturday we headed to Andersonville National Historic Site--also home to the National Prisoner of War Museum
Andersonville was the site of a POW camp during the Civil War but commemorates and honors POWs everywhere
We headed over to Plains, Georgia next
This is the high school that Jimmy Carter, and his future wife, Rosalynn, both attended. The museum was located inside the school with exhibits on his childhood, adulthood, political career and afterward
This is what Jimmy Carter's 7th grade English classroom looked like
What a cute tyke he was!
The Carters sold peanuts (not a surprise for a Georgia crop)
This larger-than-life peanut was just down the road, is it me, or is that a Jimmy Carter-esque smile on that peanut?
Also, if we had wanted to, we could have shown up at his church Sunday morning to see if maybe he was teaching Sunday School as he often does.
This was the train depot where Jimmy Carter ran his presidential campaign. It was closed, so we just saw it from the outside.
Today we attended the Perry Ward, Macon Georgia Stake
We enjoyed an Easter potluck at the campground too.
Comments
Post a Comment