Hello friends, fans and anyone who happened to stumble upon this corner of the interwebs, welcome to this weeks “Bruce on the Backroads”. First I would like to apologize for not having a blog last week, I was very busy with my job, and was not near the computer enough to put together a good blog, hopefully this week will make up for that.
Of course I took an unscheduled week off at the very worst time, as I was about to announce the winner of a contest. I received a few entries for the Lighthouse envelope contest, and with the help of our friends at random.org the Internets home of randomly generated numbers I choose a winner. Donna Suchomelly of Reading, PA won the postmarked envelope from the Blackistone Lighthouse Station, and I will be sending that out by the end of the week. Congratulations Donna, and thank you to everyone who participated.
Since I am talking about giving away things, I will let everyone know that in next few weeks I will be getting in the new “Bruce on the Backroads” stickers, which I will be giving to anyone who wants one, all you have to do is send a self addressed stamped envelope to:
Bruce on the Backroads
6513 Kriel St.
Gwynn Oak, MD 21207
I will send each and every person that sends me an SASE the new bumper sticker. When they become available I will also set up a paypal system that will allow you to buy one for a dollar as well (The dollar covering the PayPal fees, postage, and the envelope). I will also have a very special bumper sticker that says “100 smooshed pennies is a $51.00 investment towards being a more interesting person.” The ONLY way to get that will be to send me a smooshed penny. So if you are planning a trip, or have a spare smooshed penny and you would rather have a bumper sticker, send the smooshed penny and an SASE and you will get both stickers. Once again the ONLY way to get the smooshed penny sticker, will be to give me a smooshed penny, which will hopefully be a part of a new feature I hope to call “Smooshed Penny of the Week” but more about smooshed pennies in a few weeks, when I show you guys the smooshed penny from Oatman, AZ.
On to this weeks item, one that is very close to my heart, because in concert with the Havasu Dollar, this was the other item that made me want to start the Great U.S. Scavenger Hunt.
In 1513 it is believed that Ponce de Leon came to Florida looking for the Fountain of Youth. Having spent the money to purchase his own ships and hire his own crew Ponce de Leon left Puerto Rico having been told by the natives of this “Fountain of Youth”. The fact that Ponce de Leon was so loved by the citizens of Puerto Rico and generally gullible enough that he fell for this “Fountain of Youth” nonsense is a fact often glossed over at the Fountain of Youth.
In 1904 Diamond Lil' , Dr. Louella Day McConnell purchased the property that is now the Fountain of Youth Archaelogical Park when someone came upon the stone cross that Ponce de Leon used to mark La Florida “The Flower” for Spain. Here is a picture of the cross as it sits today in the Archaeological Park. The cross is in the first room where the tour starts and where everyone has a chance to sample the waters from the Fountain of Youth. I can say this about the water, if ever I wanted to drink the same amount of Sulfur used in a bottle rocket in a 4 oz. cup of water, I suppose the place I would want to do it is from the Fountain of Youth. The water is really painfully bitter, but this is an experience I think everyone should try to have if they can.
The Park includes a few different exhibits that seem to have very little to do with the Fountain of Youth in general. It seems almost as if when the grant was written in the 1950's and 60's everyone knew this should be a park, but no one could figure out how to make it educational.
There is the Discovery Globe, which is a two story tall black light globe that after an 8 minute presentation attempts to show you many of the trade routes that the early explorers used to move goods around the world as they knew it. For this demonstration the world as we know it glows in black light, makes quite a noise when it revolves, has it's own theme music and can show us trades routes with the precision of a $12 laser pointer. The thing about this show is that it really has the 1960's feel. It tells you at the beginning that you will learn the paths of the explorers, then reminds you at the end that you just learned the paths of the explorers. As much as I can very certainly state that I didn't learn a ton I didn't know about the paths of the explorers I can say it was a very cool little show, and I am glad I was in attendance.
Next there is the Navigator's Celestial Planetarium, which is exactly as it sounds, a Planetarium. I also found it odd there was a Planetarium at the Fountain of Youth, but they do use the whole thing as a teaching devise to try to help you understand the Astrolabe. I have to say I knew very little about 16th Century navigation before I entered the Planetarium, and apparently there is a lot to learn from a Planetarium with the interior of 16th century boat. I could not have guessed .
Third on the tour is the shipwreck exhibit, which quite literally is a building with a shipwreck in it, and a brief explanation of how ships wreck and what kind of items might have been in a wrecked ship. I have never been sure why this has its own building, but hey I am no one to question.
Finally the last building to mention is the Indian Burial Ground. Yes you did read that right....Indian Burial Ground. Like the kind of place they build Malt Shops on top of in 80's horror movies with titles like “Malt of Horrors” and “Soda Jerk of the Dead”. In this building you learn that the first Christian burial rights performed for native peoples was here in St. Augustine. I am never sure when a fact like this is celebrated, why exactly it is celebrated. I am not sure that coming in and changing a peoples core belief system is exactly a reason to celebrate, but I guess that depends on which side of the dogmatic battle you happen to be on, and as we well know, history is written by the winners. Oh one other thing, all thats in this room is a ledge, a boombox that in a very smooth voice tells you about the natives buried here, and a picture of dead natives. Yes, a picture, all thats left of the burial ground is a giant 20 foot by 15 foot picture of what used to lie here. This will always be one of the bigger disappointments of my travel career.
The other thing to know about the Park is that is inhabited by peacocks. There are tons of them everywhere. There are also machines that sell peanuts that you can feed the birds, and it really a ton of fun to have a peacock eat a peanut from you hand.
Finally there is a gift shop, and if you bring a bottle they will fill it full of filtered water from the well that was the fountain of youth. You can also do what I did, which was buy the small bottle of unfiltered, undrinkable water from the fountain. There are also big bottles available that are drinkable and have an old timey label, which is perfect to give to friends that would like to live forever. It seems to me that the Fountain of Youth is not so much a great historical recreation of of the 1500's as much as it is a great time capsule of the 1960's, and I feel that is something to be celebrated.
So friends I present you with the next item on the Great U.S. Scavenger Hunt...a bottle of water from the Fountain of Youth. Drink well my friends.
Remember if have any questions or comments feel free to contact me on the Facebook group or on my email @ This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . You can start sending in your smooshed pennies and self addressed stamped envelopes and I will start sending out the stickers as soon as they come in to me. Thanks for reading, remember to join the Facebook group, and tell your friends.
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