I've Been Busy

(Here I am with the same view, basically, as my trip to Hong Kong. This IS a different color, granted, but basically the same place. I am on the bus with two classes of 4th graders.)

This has been an extremely busy week. M,T,W I worked. I had to do a lot of "things" on Wed that I normally do on Thursday because I was privileged to go on Thursday with a fourth-grade class to St Augustine. I must say, I was impressed with the tour. Instead of just going there, trying to "discover" the history of St Augustine, the teachers had the wonderful idea of booking a tour, buses and all.

Being a former teacher, I never once thought to do this. And, I'm sorry I didn't. It was great. The group was organized, on-time, and a professional visit to our oldest city was had by all.

This was our first stop - bathrooms of course.

The bus driver got us there safely, with "lots of scenery to see" , and earlier than we had previously thought we would get there. That was great for us. It gave us extra time to "shop."

From there, we went to the fort. This time we only ate lunch, but we still had to keep off the walls.

The chamber of commerce would have been proud of the day. There was a slight breeze blowing off the water so it was an ideal day to visit central Florida.

The fort was part of our tour, as was the old school house, and the old part of the city.

It was built over 300 years ago of coquina shells and has to be protected from the oils on our hands and the elements of the weather, as much as possible.

Our guide was so informative and knowledgeable about the fort. She made it interesting and exciting just learning all about the many phases of ownership and occupation mostly by the Spanish, French, and English.

One of the "dressed up" guards allowed me to take his picture with Julie. (She was also with me in Hong Kong.)

I wanted to bring him home with us he was so cute, but he said his wife might object. (This was probably true.)

That uniform looked like it would be very warm to wear it, and it was also made out of a type of "burlap" which would not be very comfortable either. But, it made a nice picture.

The picture on the left was looking over one side of the fort to the other side; part of the harbor was visible also.

Scott, on the right, was one of our guides. Nice guy who lives in Ocala and works all over. He has been a guide for 17 years and can't imagine doing anything else. He sounds like he likes his job as much as I like mine.

I was impressed by the room used for meditation. It was a little "rustic" for my taste, but it definitely had it's place in the early days of our country.

There was not much room inside but the character of the place helped to distract.

When it was time to go home, most everyone was ready. There was a lot of walking, and even if it was breezy, it was still around 85 degrees.

It WAS a wonderful day, but I had a packed week-end ahead of me and I had to "sleep fast" for I had to be up, packed and ready for our trip to Mobile, AL the next day by 6 a.m. That trip was also an adventure, but for another blogging.