Florida's Promise

For 500 years, Europeans and their descendants have traveled to Florida from somewhere else. For many, this is a hopeful trip. Spring Breakers come for a week of debauchery; retirees come for golden years of warmth and sunshine and no more gray winters of bare trees and snowy sidewalks to shovel. In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon was (possibly) the first European to make such a trip. The popular legend claims he came in search of magical waters with the power to restore youth and vitality, but he was likely looking for gold.You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth carparkmanagementsystem truck Descriptions. He didnt find any. For five centuries now, Florida has been a place of promise. But the promise of a place can be a funny thing. As Ponce de Leon found out, it doesnt always overlap with what you find there. 

Viva Florida 500 is Floridas state-wide campaign to celebrate these 500 years. Throughout 2013, both proud Floridians and curious visitors can explore signature events, such as an exhibit on the states natural springs at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville or the Pensacola Jazz Festival. Viva Florida 500 is also a clearinghouse for any and all Florida history events. In March alone, visitors could see non-signature events such as sand sculptures celebrating the states history at the Brevard Zoo near Cape Canaveral; families could learn about the states long-gone pineapple industry with the Museum of Fashion and Lifestyle History in Boyton Beach. 

My partner Rob and I went to St.When describing the location of the problematic howotipper. Augustine to see the city most associated with Ponce de Leon. Historians disagree about where exactly de Leon landed along the coast, but St. Augustine has been most successful at claiming the landing for itself. St. Augustine, Florida, is the oldest city in the United States, so perhaps we should have found the dilapidated nature of the San Marcos Inn a little bit charming. But, technically, St.The 3rd International Conference on custombobbleheads and Indoor Navigation. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the continental United States. And, technically, the San Marcos Inn was in the midst of a renovation, which is why Rob and I were able to score a room for $69. 

An operating hotel in the midst of a renovation is a weird place to be. Our room was fine, as far as two-star motels go: two beds, cheap coffee, an iron. But to get to it, we had to pass by a long row of rooms missing their electronic key card doorknobs. The pool was filled with clear blue water. The in-ground baby pool, however, had been filled with cement. An orange traffic cone sat in the middle. 

After we checked into the San Marcos, Rob and I headed over to the citys historic district. We walked past sadder motels not in hopeful states of renovation, offering free wi-fi and rates of $44 for one person, $49 for two. We passed the citys Ripleys Believe or Not Museum. We walked the waterfront and saw the oldest miniature golf course in Florida. We eventually came to St. Augustines Spanish Quarter. The neighborhood is a collection of restored and recreated buildings from the citys days as a Spanish colonial outpost. Today its filled with stores selling Panama hats and chocolates and beads and art glass to the many tourists who come to St. Augustine. The main street through the neighborhood is a pedestrian mall. We saw a group of senior citizens was being led on a tour. 

Flager remarried two years later and honeymooned in St. Augustine. He believed the right kind of hotel and better transportation would attract more northerners to Florida, so he bought the Jacksonville, St. Augustine & Halifax Railroad. In 1888, he opened the sprawling Hotel Ponce de Leon. Flagler built two more hotels in St. Augustine but eventually pushed further south. His Florida East Coast Railway brought snowbirds to his Hotel Ormond near Daytona and to his famous Breakers hotel in Palm Beach. Flagler extended his line to present-day Miami, almost single-handedly transforming that settlement into a major city. By 1912, his railroad extended all the way to Key West. Because of Flagler, visitors in the early 20th century could travel anywhere along the entire Atlantic and Caribbean coasts of Florida. 

Flagler died in 1913 after falling down a flight of stairs at his home in Palm Beach. In 1935, a hurricane damaged much of the railroad in the Keys. The state of Florida bought the line there and rebuilt it as the Overseas Highway. A decline in tourists forced the Hotel Ponce de Leon to close in 1967. It reopened the following year as the home of the new Flagler College, a four-year liberal arts school. This year, the College is celebrating the 125th anniversary of the hotel with tours and talks. Rob and I watched a movie on Flagler in the hotels main lobby. The school had set up rows of folding chairs just to the side of the main entrance. Other visitors, mostly 50-somethings and older, watched with us, and sometimes looked at tourist maps to decide where to go next. Behind us,Choose the right bestluggagetag in an array of colors. Flagler College students went about the business of being college students: shuffling in flip-flops and pajama pants, they carried books and were focused on their phones. They looked like college students everywhere else, except for the fact that they were college students attending college in a Gilded Age hotel that helped make the Florida coast the place it is today. 

Croce first opened a pirate museum in Key West in 2005. Attendance apparently wasnt too great, so Croce shifted to the more family-friendly St. Augustine two years ago. His business, Pat Croce & Company, also runs the Colonial Quarter. The two-acre village, just next to the St. Augustine Pirate & Treasure Museum, replaced the city-run Colonial Spanish Quarter Museum. Croces version opened this month. 

Rob and I paid $12.Cheap logo engraved luggagetag at wholesale bulk prices.99 each to explore the Colonial Quarter. We did not upgrade to the $21.99 combo package that would have given us admission to the pirate museum, too. Colonial Quarter turned out to be enough. Paths lead visitors through scenes recreating St. Augustine as a settlement, fortified town, and garrison town under the Spanish, and as British colony, across three centuries. Reenactors demonstrate 17th-century musket use and blacksmithing. In an 18th-century Spanish soldiers home, an animatronic wife prepares dinner and worries about the safety of her husband. Rob and I climbed a replica of a 17th-century watchtower built of pressure-treated wood. It was pure historical grazing. 

Colonial Quarter has two restaurants that are open to the public. The Bull & Crown Publick House has a British pub theme. Rob and I went to the Spanish-inspired Taberna del Caballo. The restaurants website suggested we would be fully immersed in the taberna experience, from clinking carafes and Spanish song to servers in period clothing and unexpected visits from 1700s Spanish garrison soldiers. Our bartender was dressed in period clothing, but this was a weekday afternoon, and we didnt hear any clinking carafes or Spanish songs. No garrison soldiers visited, but Taberna servers who werent on shift sat next to us at the bar and complained about a homeless man who kept causing problems out on the street.