Going back for another dose of history!! Monday morning
we checked out of our room and headed back to St. Augustine for some more exploring. On the way Sophie read to us the significance of the
"Castillo de San Marcos.
St.
Augustine's most historically significant structure is the Castillo de
San Marcos, a fort constructed by the Spanish between 1672 and 1695.The need to fortify the tiny garrison town was understood as early as 1586, when it was attacked by Sir Francis Drake, an English corsair whose fleet of twenty ships and two thousand men sacked and burned the town.
Later, in 1668, the English pirate Robert Searles assaulted and plundered the settlement. At the same time the threat of English colonization in the north had significantly increased, and Queen Mariana of Spain authorized the construction of a stone fortification."
to where the ammunition was stored.
A 5 minute clip of a movie was shown teaching how the cannons and riffles were loaded to a cadence. Haleigh would still be sitting there if we hadn't needed to move on eventually. I'm not sure if it was the funny soldiers all moving in step with the call, the weapons, or the Spanish cadence repeated over and over, but she was intrigued!
After much discovery we found a cool spot in the fort and filled out our Jr. Ranger booklet. It was amazing to see how much the girls had soaked in during this visit.
Jr. Ranger pins and badges were collected and the girls were very proud of their "new status."
Nothing could beat our fort experience, but the girls wanted to take stab at it by visiting the Pirate Museum. It did not even compare with the fort, but there was a LOT of history there too.
We ended the adventure with lunch at a little deli and the lemonade was exactly what we all needed!
With full bellies we headed north to get Mark from his final lecture. He jumped in the car and steered us toward Jekyll Island, GA.
What a great day!!
Needless to say, we all slept well that night!
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