The Knott House

A few days ago we went to the Knott House. Despite the name, it is in fact a house. It’s a nineteenth century house and is the location of the official reading of the Emancipation Proclamation to Tallahassee after the end of the War Between the States. Seems the Union military governor took a shine to it and set up his headquarters there. Thus it is the front porch of the house from which the news of freedom was first heard. The Proclamation is re-read from the porch each year on the 20 May anniversary. The name of the house comes from the people who lived in it most recently before it becoming a state museum. It’s currently set up as the Knotts had it in the 1930s. He was a high-level government worker in Florida’s finance department. She was a social climber and aspiring poet. Since the house is about a five minute walk from the capital building they rented out one of the rooms to other people who were in town on government business. For one dollar a night you got the guest room and the use of the bathroom. Interesting features of the Knott house include a “privacy porch” that can only be reached from inside of the house (apparently it was poor form for passersby to initiate conversation with people on such a porch), a $200 (remember this is the 1930s) radio/record player, and many poems attached to the various pieces of furniture telling the piece’s story from its own point of view (the 150 year old china cabinet asks “will you look as good when you are as old?”).

Maya’s got an amazing 6 days in a row coming up so we are off on another adventure. We are headed to Maya’s favorite vacation spot – Dog Island. Asher's coming too. It should be a lot of fun! See you when we get back…

In a Tourist Trap

Another distinctly American layer to St. Augustine is the tourist scene. Being the oldest European town they have the first or the oldest of a lot of stuff. They have the oldest house, the oldest wooden schoolhouse, the oldest store, the first stone fort in North America, it’s where Ponce de Leon “took possession” of the New World in 1513, and where the first North American “man-made aid to navigation” was built. And all of it is open to the public! Buy your tickets now!

The transformation into a tourist destination began in the 1880s when one of the partners in Standard Oil named Henry Flagler decided to develop Florida as “America’s Riviera.” He built several hotels in St. Augustine, several in Palm Beach and built a railroad line all the way to Miami to bring in the vacationers from the north. At that time, it was intended for the rich upper crust vacationers who would live in Florida during the cold north-east winters. Of course once other people got a look at Florida they started to come on vacation too.

One of these hotels of Flagler’s was the Alcazar. It now houses St. Augustine City Hall and the Victorian-era art collection of another guy named Otto Lightner. As you stroll through the Lightner Museum, there are all kinds of photographs from the days when the building was the Alcazar Hotel. They had a ballroom (now an art gallery), a spa (now housing an extensive cut glass exhibit) and an indoor pool (now filled in and turned into an antique mall).

In the same tradition is the Villa Zorayda. It was built by a Franklin Smith in 1883 as his winter home in Florida. It is built to look (a little bit) like the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. The name comes from one of the princesses mentioned in Washington Irving’s Tales of the Alhambra. Smith imported a bunch of Moorish and pseudo-Moorish furniture and finishings to complete the look of the place. There is a harem room, a mini Court of Lions and an Egyptian room. The house later became the Zorayda Club which was a posh spot for cards, gambling and drinking until the 1930s. The decorations were further refined by a Lebanese antique dealer named Abraham Mussallem who filled it with even more Oriental, Middle Eastern and Victorian treasures and really turned it into a center of St. Augustine night life. It is still in the Mussallem family and they’ve had it open as a museum since 1934. It’s a neat place to see. But beware! There is a cursed cat-hair rug and the guides are likely to tell you that the place is a copy of the “al-HAM-bra.”

Not quite so tourist-oriented but still interesting to see is the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum. For a mere $8 you can climb up 216 steps to the top. We did. It’s a great view. The Museum is in the old keeper’s house and has a lot of info about the Lighthouse in WWII when it was used as a Coast Guard station and apparently chased away German U-Boats that were close enough to shore to see the people on the beach. There is also info about the extensive restoration done on the keeper’s house and the other out buildings in the 1970s as it was all being turned into a museum.

One night we took a walking ghost tour. St. Augustine is supposedly the third most haunted city in the U.S. The costumed ghost tour leaders are nigh-ubiquitous in the old parts of town. There are at least three different companies that run them. There is also a “Trolly of the Doomed” and a haunted “train” that let you ride to haunted buildings. On our tour we heard stories about the vengeful spirit of a Seminole war chief who was kept in the Castillo, the Huguenot massacre that resulted in the bay being call Matanzas, a ghostly nun and conquistador that visited an old lady one night and an orphaned boy buried in the cemetery. We had hoped for an intimate tour but there were almost 50 people trooping around the city with us. We saw no strange happenings and didn’t hear anything. But Matt took a few pictures of the cemetery and there are definitely unusual light phenomenae going on. Check out that apparent fire rising out from in front of that grave!

And yet none of these things compare to the most tourist-ensnaring thing we experienced. Don’t go to the Fountain of Youth Archeological Park; it’s a trap! All of the exhibits (save the newest – the shipwreck exhibit) are distinctly second or even third-tier attractions. Their dioramas are the worst we’ve seen since elementary school. The so called “Discovery Globe” is possibly the most… painful… informational presentation we have ever endured. There is a planetarium with a “how to navigate by the stars” program – which is a cool idea, but it’s hampered by a garage-sale quality projector and an unclear relationship between the visuals and the audio. You also get a taste of some real “fountain of youth” well-water but they don’t make mention of the fact that the whole story of the fountain of youth seems to have been attached to Ponce de León’s voyage after the fact by historians writing after his death. The signage and all the presentations point to the park being the location of de León’s 1513 landing, however, that is also something that is unsure from a scholarly point a view. The most redeeming quality of the place is that it does seem to be the location where Menéndez built the fort that was the start of St. Augustine (see last post). There is a plaque (far from the main buildings) that commemorates this fact. It might be worth going (warning cash-only at the admission gate), just to say you have been, but don’t say you haven’t been warned!

And so the front loops around to the back. The early-modern Spanish Ponce de León who first sloshed up onto beach of the New World is now part of modern America’s capitalist system. There is nothing of interest which some American will not put a fence around and charge admission to see. Likewise, there is nothing of interest that all Americans will refuse to pay admission to see. And so it goes.

In the Oldest [Permanent, European] Town in the U.S.

After so much work (she worked 5 shifts in 6 days) Maya was ready for a change of pace and a change of scenery. She had five days off in a row so we decided to head out of town. There are only three minor attractions left on our to-do-in-Tallahassee list anyway, so we went to St. Augustine for the weekend. It was really fun. One of the many things that is great about the internet is that you can totally plan a trip to place you’ve never been from home. We looked online for a hotel and restaurants and even printed out tickets and coupons to attractions before we ever got in the car!

St. Augustine is the oldest European town in the United States to still be inhabited. It was founded in 1565 by a force of Spanish soldiers and settlers under the command of Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. The Spanish history of the area goes back a little further than that, though. The place where Juan Ponce de León landed and "took possession" of the land he called La Florida (effectively all of North America) is traditionally believed to be in the vicinity of St. Augustine. We went to this supposed landing site and saw the supposed Fountain of Youth (more on that later). Menéndez's expedition was to enforce Spain’s claim to the area by establishing a town and wiping out any others who might try to settle in the area. The French had beaten the Spanish to the area and had built a settlement the year before to the north called Ft. Caroline. Menéndez wiped them out. A storm helped weaken them first. The story goes that the Spanish killed the French and threw their hacked apart bodies into the bay. The Matanzas Bay (trans: slaughter) between St. Augustine and the ocean is so called because of the event.

St. Augustine was the administrative, missionary and military capital of Florida for the next 260 years. In 1672 work began on a stone fort to better protect the area. It seems that various pirate and British attackers had burned down the pervious nine wooden forts in and around St. Augustine. Named Castillo de San Marcos, this fort is awesome. For those of you that went on Family Vacation 2007 – it was like Fort Mackinac, only even cooler. The walls are a shell limestone called coquina that tends to absorb the impact of cannon balls rather than crack. This place has never been taken in a fight! Five different flags have flown above the walls but each time it was a handover brought about by political forces elsewhere (see below). It endured a 50-day siege in 1702 and a 27-day siege in 1740. Both times the British attackers ran out of supplies first and had to retreat. All of the rooms are open and you can walk around on the gun deck and in the powder room and the chapel reading the informational plaques at your leisure. We had to get a picture of ourselves standing in front of the “execution wall.” It appears to be riddled with musket ball holes.

We also visited an area called the Old St. Augustine Village. It’s a couple of blocks that has the second and third oldest houses in the city. The oldest house in town is elsewhere. The Prince Murat House was built in c.1790 in the colonial Spanish style. It’s painted pink on the outside (not sure why) but it looks nice on the inside. It’s look inside and out is very different from other colonial houses we’ve seen. Most likely because it’s Spanish and not English like most of the other “colonial” pieces of the U.S. The house is named for Prince Achille Murat who lived there briefly in 1824. He was the Crown Prince of Napels thanks to his uncle being Napoleon. After he moved on (to Tallahassee, actually) he got into farming and ended up marrying the great grand-niece of George Washington.

All of the interesting, complicated history of Florida comes together in St. Augustine’s Plaza de la Constitution. It used to be a parade ground for the troops when the Spanish first built the town. During the Seven Years War (usually called the French and Indian War by Americans), Britain captured Cuba and Puerto Rico. In the peace treaty of 1763 the Spanish traded Florida to the British to get their islands back. The British re-purposed the plaza as a market place. A small plaque commemorates this. The plaza still works that way to some extent; there were artists selling their work the evening we were there. During the American Revolution, France and Spain took the opportunity to harass the British for their own reasons and Spain captured the Bahamas from the British. In the peace treaty of 1783 the British traded Florida to the Spanish to get their islands back. During this second period of Spanish control the plaza received its name. The Spanish established their first constitution in 1812 after throwing off control of Napoleon’s France. In St. Augustine’s plaza the almost entirely Spanish population set up a marble spire to commemorate the event and named the open space the Plaza de la Constitution. The plaza still goes by the name and the spire is still there, still written all in Spanish. Of course, when Americans took over Florida in 1819 they added their own layers of history. They used the nearby Castillo as a base in their Indian wars and as a military prison. Just east of the Spanish spire is a taller one erected in the 1880s to commemorate those who died fighting for the Confederacy. There is also a WWII monument with plaques for the Korean and Viet Nam wars attached. Today the whole plaza is a little shop-lined park in the middle of modern St. Augustine’s downtown.

Going to St. Augustine

So here's a post about something we haven't done yet. We are going to go to St. Augustine tomorrow. Since we have used up all the attractions in Tallahassee, we have to go further afeild. St. Augustine is about 3 hours away on the Atlantic coast. There is a ghost tour, a lighthouse, the oldest house in Florida, a fort, a mission, a "scaled down" version of the Alhambra built by a millionaire in the 1880s as his house and the list goes on... All details will be revealed when we return. Happy weekend, everybody!

Maya’s Angry Face

So after a week of Matt’s parents being here, Maya had to work that Friday and Saturday. On Friday at work she found out that she also had to work Sunday and Monday. Four days in a row! Fierce. Anger. Maya had specifically requested not to work that many days in a row. And yet she is. Fist of Rage! Apparently they have no regard for their nursing staff. That is why Maya will never work at this hospital ever again!
And in related news... she’ll never have to! She signed the contract for her next placement a few days ago and we will be going to San Luis Obispo in California next! California. Next. Hurray!

Do you know someone in Tallahassee, or something? part 2

While Matt’s parents were here we went back to Havana (all the shops were open this time). It’s a neat little group of stores but nothing that is really one-of-a-kind. There was a General Store full of nostalgic toys, jars of various pickled items, and garden supplies. There were also plenty of “antique” stores that mostly sold other people’s really old stuff. There was an art co-op gallery called Light N Up with quite a lot of variety – pots, paintings, jewelry, photographs and some sculpture. There’s also an amazing store called Wanderings which features all kinds of very fashionable furniture along with accent lamps, art and various trinkets from around the world. A lot of tempting pieces, if stuff like that wasn’t all so pricey. The biggest find of the day was an old maps shop pretending to be a shop for paintings. They had framed pages of old books, illuminated Bible pages, old maps of Europe, old maps of the Americas. The place is run buy some old Dutch guy that just really likes maps. How did he end up in Florida? Havana is worth a visit if you happen to be in the area and if you like that sort of thing, but don’t go too far out of your way to see it.

We also went back to Wakulla Springs so Mom and Dad could see manatees. Unfortunately, the glass-bottomed boats were still not running and the manatees have moved on down the river. Maybe they went to escape the bugs! The biting gnats were out in force. Maya strove mightily to defend herself from the tiny insects but she still has bites that itch. All of us got quite bitten up. On the river ride itself the bugs were not so bad. The driver/tour guide we had this time was quite memorable. He had an almost stylized way of speaking which was a wonderful act for the tourists or was just the way this guy talked (most likely the later). He didn’t sound quite like Uncle Remus, but it was in that direction, like Cousin Remus or something. When we first pulled away from the dock he warned us that he was not the best driver. But then he assured us that was okay because we weren’t in the best boat anyway. It was like that for 45 minutes. We saw quite a lot of alligators – more than last time.

On Thursday, while we were all still recovering from our insect bites, we finally did see mammoth bones - at the Museum of Florida History. The museum is the ground floor of the state archives so there is a lot of synergy of preservation going on there. Also a plus is that the museum is free – even parking. We don’t know if other states have a museum in the capital like this, but Florida’s is really neat. We saw reconstructions of paleo-indian artifacts found in Florida, mammoth bones, old dugout canoes, silver Spain mined out of Bolivia and lost when the ships sunk off Florda’s coast, portraits of Seminole leaders, battle flags from Florida’s Confederate and Union brigades, a “battle log” shot full of cannon balls, old farming, logging and citrus industry equipment… It was a big place and just kept going and going. We didn’t see quite all of it. We had to cut it short to go eat lunch. An amazing place. We’ll have to go back and see the rest.

Figaro was also along for the trip. He’s not feeling too well. Mom and Dad wanted him close to take care of him. It was fun to have two rabbits in the house, but Asher is glad to have to whole house back to himself. He had to mostly stay in the bedroom while Figaro got to be in the living room. He’s such a rabbit. Get better Figaro!

It was a good visit. Anybody else want to come visit?

Do you know someone in Tallahassee, or something? part 1

This past week Matt’s parents came to visit. It was great to have them here. Our list of places to see is now almost complete and we’ve even seen some places twice! When Mom and Dad got to the visitor center on the border they said, “We are the last Americans to have never been to Florida.” When asked their destination they answered, “Tallahassee.” Apparently, the lady looked at them with total disbelief and asked, “Do you know someone in Tallahassee, or something?” Yes. They know us!

At the visitor center they also found out about a small aquarium near-ish to Tallahassee called the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory. That was our first destination. This place is tiny. From the front it just looks like someone’s house with a couple extra out buildings. Inside it is decently large and the neat thing is that almost all the tanks are small so you can get up close and really see the animals. Also, the majority of the tanks are low and wide with no lids. To see the animals you just look down into the shallow water. Further making the place unique is that about half of the tanks are touch tanks. You can reach into the shallow water and touch crabs, sand dollars, starfish, shellfish and fish (but only the slow ones). That is, you are allowed to, if you want to. I think we had a mostly touch-free experience. Matt did touch one live sand dollar (which is brown while alive and covered by fine spikes). In the non-touchable tanks were seahorses, anemones, sharks, horseshoe crabs, rays, lampreys, a lobster and a sea turtle. Altogether a unique experience, much better than what we expected when we got out of the car.

After our visit to the GSML we drove yet further south and crossed Ochlockonee Bay on a causeway above the water and drove on down to the Gulf coast. There isn’t a great beach in the area but we stopped at a sail boat launch point and took pictures with the ocean (gulf) in the background.

Next, we headed over into the St. Mark’s National Wildlife Refuge which is a big estuary preserve right on the coast. There are also some man-made ponds that support various animals that have lost habitat elsewhere. There is also, and this is the real main reason we went, a lighthouse! Since Dad and Mom have a thing for visiting lighthouses this was a trip we’d been saving until they were here. It’s a nice lighthouse. Apparently it’s recently restored inside, although it was not yet open to the public when we were there. Other than looking at the lighthouse, which doesn’t take too long even if you really like lighthouses, there are lots of walking trails on the levees that surround the man-made ponds. Maya and Matt took a walk along a beach-front trail and we all tramped through the woods a short ways to an observation tower overlooking Headquarters Pool. We saw cranes (mostly as white shapes in the distance) and one confirmed alligator (others may or may not have been logs) and one pelican diving in the water (although he went behind a shrub before Dad could snap his picture). There was a lot more trudging through the woods and reeds that could have been done but by then lunch was long ago, the bugs and the heat were really getting to us and we decided to leave. We went to a place called Food Glorious Food for dinner. It was indeed glorious.

Home Again, Twice

There just hasn’t been too much to say for a week or two now. Maya worked two days at the end of March, then we went home to Louisville for five days and of the five days since we’ve been back she’s worked four. I could talk about the trip, but almost all of the people that I expect to be reading this blog are the people we saw on the trip (hello to you too, Abby).

We took Asher with us because we didn’t have anyone here to take care of him. He rode along just fine. He’s getting to be a well-traveled rabbit. We calculate in his short life he’s covered over 2000 miles. Most of it quite recently. We’ll have to keep a running count on his mileage and schedule all the recommended oil changes.

The wedding was very nice. The happy couple has a thing for Star Wars and used the award ceremony music from A New Hope for their recessional from the church. Han and Leia action figures were the cake toppers. The father of the bride has a 20-some piece big-band style group called Swingtime. They played the reception which was really cool. There was not a father-daughter dance, but a father-daughter duet on saxophone and trombone. Fun times were had all around. Too bad Matt forgot the camera.

There was some big basketball something going on about that time. We were subjected to other peoples’ intense interest of the game. Most people seem to be way more interested than us. Not that that’s a bad thing. As Matt told one person, we’ll come to hang out with you no matter what’s on TV.

We also stopped over on the way back south at our cousins’ house outside of Nashville. They have a beautiful home. It’s all custom wood paneling, amazing tile accents and brushed steel appliances. Plus it’s huge. Our whole apartment would fit in their master bedroom! Their three kids are a lot of fun and so sweet. We got to see their whole collection of Thomas and his train yard pals. They also introduced us to a great restaurant called Demos’. They have about 10 different kinds of spaghetti sauces. And they are all good! If you’ve never been before they let you taste them all before you order. We all had just the spaghetti, but the place has a fairly wide-ranging menu. If you are in the Nashville area we recommend you check it out.

For any of you wondering if that stretch between Montgomery and I-10 gets any shorter the more you drive it, it doesn’t! It was strange to go home to a place where we no longer live and then turn around and come to a place where we live that isn’t really home. Home is just the three of us right now. Home or not, we do know our way around town almost totally without a map now. Maya continues to survive her job. She bought some different shoes which are helping her feet stay feeling better. She’s also been working on other floors in the hospital. While the place is disorganized generally, her regular floor seems to be really disorganized.

Matt continues to stay at home. He does the laundry, the dishes and cooks supper several nights a week. He’s like a regular house-husband. Of course he also spends time watching DVD commentary and playing video games. And he continues to peck away at writing. He had an idea just the other day about how to connect all the stories he may ever write into one giant story world. It ends up being something like a mix of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Rifts* and the myth of Atlantis. So if he ever does become famous, you who read it here can say you heard it first!

One other fun note: Since we finished watching all the episodes of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer we brought with us, we needed more TV on DVD so we bought the Complete Monty Python’s Flying Circus. It’s a big fat set and it’s really a lot of fun. Nudge, nudge.

Well, guess there was a lot to say after all.