History in the little towns of the South; St. Augustine, FL to St. Simon Island, GA

We did it! We ended up going to Disney World! It was a whole heck of a lot of money, but I don't know if we would ever have the chance to go again. I thought, "Well maybe when Alex and I have kids we can take them to Disney World", but now that I look back I'm so glad we went with just us two. It felt like we were on vacation rather than just traveling. We were at Disney World for about 12 hrs and it was non-stop walking/waiting in line the entire time. We got to see/ride on about 15 different exhibits and I noticed the rides are a lot longer than the ones at Disney Land. Splash Mountain seemed like we were on it for 15 minutes. I thought, "Man, is this ride ever going to end?" It was a great experience all in all. I'm mean it was a "Magical" experience:) The light parade was awesome and the fireworks lasted for about 20 minutes. It was probably the best fireworks show I have ever seen. There were a couple times during the show that I thought it was over, but it wasn't. The place we were at in the park was right under the fireworks. It was pretty cool. Now the question is, "Would I go again?" Um, that's a tough one. I'll say maybe. Maybe, because it would cost a whole heck of a lot of money to do it again. I would get the park-hopper pass and stay for a week. That's the only way I'd do it again. Oh yeah, and I would stay at one of the Disney World Resorts.

Alex insisted on getting a big fat turkey leg and he enjoyed it thoroughly

After our little side track in Orlando we made our way back to the Florida Coast. By this time Alex was really tired of being in Florida. We had been there for almost a month. I was still fine with being there, but I think Alex just wanted to get on to another state. We went to St. Augustine. It's the oldest continually settled town in the USA. It was first discovered in 1513 by Ponce De Leon when he was trying to find the fabled "Fountain of Youth," and it was settled in 1565. Obviously Ponce didn't find the "Fountain" because he died. There is a freshwater spring near the town that was believed to be the "Fountain of Youth," but it's never been proven, hehe.

St. Augustine; Alex is kicking down the door to the oldest house there

I really loved St. Augustine. It's one of those towns that is going to stick out in my brain when I think of Florida. The town still holds much of it's old town feel. There is a Fort there that is still pretty much intact and was built in 1642. St. Augustine was Spanish run for a long time, until Florida was traded with the British for Cuba. Then it was traded back to Spain for the Bahamas. Then it was bought from Spain by the USA in the 1820s for 5 million dollars. It's been in the possesion of the US since then:) During the Civil War, St. Augustine was captured by the Union Army. The Fort was only being guarded by one Confederate soldier. The Confederate didn't put up a fight when the Union army arrived. St. Augustine was a Union occupied town during the entire length of the Civil War and became a place for the citizens of the US up north to vacation during the winter during the wartime.

St. Augustine Fort

St. Augustine has some of the oldest buildings still standing/intact in all of the USA/Florida. It's home to the oldest wooden school house in the US, built sometime in the 1700s. It has the oldest general store in Florida and the oldest home in Florida. The general store is still running as a store and acts as a museum, too. The glass cabinets in the store holds thousands of items that were never sold, some dating over 150 years past the expiration date! The roads in the town are all very narrow and it felt like I was in a little town in Europe. I could have wandered around the streets all day. I would love to go back someday and stay at one of the Bed and Breakfasts there.

Oldest School House and Store

We just couldn't get enough of the old town charm, so we went to another oldest town in Florida on Amelia Island called Fernandina Beach. The oldest house in the town(circa early 1800s) is still being occupied by the builder's decendents, and the house was fastened together with wooden pegs. I think that is sooo cool! Fernandina Beach also has the oldest hotel and saloon in the state. I love the old town charm!

Fernandina Beach Town

Sign to the Comfort Station AKA Bathroom:)

After Fernandina, we were done with Florida. We finally made it to another state, the state of Georgia. We stayed the night at an RV park. It was the cheapest RV park we've been to and it had free breakfast! How awesome is that??!! I think we are experiencing "southern hospitality" again:) They even had free coffee and cookies all day long! I was very happy!

We are currently in Brunswick, GA. It isn't much of a fancy town. It's more on the practical industrial side of things. We took a side trip to Georgia's Golden Isles near Brunswick, which is a grouping of islands along the Georgian coast. We stopped on St. Simon Island, which is home to the famous British Fortress Frederica. Not much of the Fortress remains intact, but the history behind it was very interesting to say the least. The 42nd British Regimen came to St. Simon Island in 1736 and built a fort along with a small town. The Spanish were not happy at all with that because they claimed the Georgian territory to to be theirs, but Britain had a different map that said Georgia was "Debatable Territory," and in fact did not belong to the Spanish. The land around the fort was marshy and heavily forested. In 1742 the Spanish sent 2000 troops to invade Fort Frederica. When the Spanish were about 1 mile away from the Fort, they were spotted by the British. The land was so heavily forested that the Spanish did not know they were so close to the Fort. The Fort was only guarded by about 200 men. They were strongly outnumbered. The Colonal Oglethrope sent about 40-50 men out to surprise attack the Spanish. The Spanish were completely shocked because they weren't used to such gorilla/Indian style of warfare. The combination heavy forest, gunfire smoke, and rain prevented the Spanish from actually seeing how many British they were fighting against. The Spanish ran out of ammunition and the British captured 12 Spanish Soldiers. The next day the Colonal sent a letter to the Spanish commander basically telling him that more British troops would be arriving and they would be immensely outnumbered and ultimately defeated. The Colonal was lying, but his lie worked. The Spanish left and Georgia was left to the British to keep. The battle was called The Bloody Marsh Battle. 

The Frederica Fort

Old Home Foundations in Frederica. The Foundations are made from a cement using water, sand, lime, and oyster shells

The Frederica Graveyard

Many of the building foundations from the town surrounding the fort have been discovered in the last 60 years. An old map of the town tells who lived in which house. As Alex and I walked by the old foundations I couldn't help, but imagine what life would have been like for the people who lived there over 250 years ago. The old town store acted as a church, as well as, a store and John Wesley came and preached to the towns people there. In the store there was accounted to be 8,000 bottles of wine....I wonder what John Wesley thought of that ;)

The town was mysteriously burned to the ground some time in the late 1700s, and was basically forgotten until the 1940s when archeologists started digging up artifacts and finding the remains of the foundations in the town.