Bottles in a Tree

Its about 3 days Virtual World Walking from Saint Augustine to Jacksonville.


If you click on the picture - you will see it is decorated with a lot of colored bottles. On sunny days like this one, it sparkles and casts rainbows.

I've no idea why the owner of the house did this though. I see this tree fairly regularly as it is along the route of my lunch time walk, which usually takes me to the Post Office.


Someone doesn't think too highly of the current crop of Presidential Candidates.

Barren Hill - February 2, 2008

As of February 3, 2008 at 2:15 PM
Steps: 1,122,762
Miles: 478.06
Miles to Georgia: 54.94


The Schuylkill River Bike Path follows the river closely. It is just to the left in this picture in Spring Mill, PA. Barren Hill is straight ahead in the distance and Miquon is just around the bend in the river.

The City of Philadelphia line is about 3 miles from this point. Downtown Philadelphia (near the Art Museum that Rocky stood at) is about 15 miles down the path. On a nice day, it is a very interesting walk from here.


This old stone house was built in 1774. This house was here when Lafayette (why didn't they just call him Joey?) took his forces to Barren Hill.


The house in the previous picture is just off to the left in this picture of the old Pennsylvania Railroad bridge. The steel poles are uprights that used to hold up the electric wires that powered the trains. The railroad is long gone and is now the bike path. You can see a biker in blue near the center of the picture if you look hard. The creek flowing under the bridge is named Lafayette Creek. Barren Hill is in the distance over the rise. There was a railroad stop named Lafayette on the Pennsylvania Railroad right here in the 1890s.


A very short distance away is the Reading Railroad station. The bright yellow ten foot clearance sign marks the road bridge which is next to the bridge over the creek seen in the previous picture.

I usually walk down wind when it is cold. You see the flag blowing and it was chilly on the day I walked. The nice thing about the path is that it runs right next to the working railroad (now SEPTA) and you can park in a station lot (free on weekends), walk for miles downwind, catch a train someplace else and ride it back to your car.


Another nice thing is that on the other side of the tracks is the heated waiting room. No bathrooms here though, and none on the trains either.

Barren Hill - May 20, 1778

Real World Walk to Barren Hill

With the onset of spring in 1778, General George Washington expected movement of some sort from the British army in the City of Philadelphia. To protect the encampment at Valley Forge and to determine British intentions along with annoying their foraging expeditions, on May 18, 1778, Washington sent 2,200 men and five guns across the Schuylkill River to the area north of Philadelphia.

Commanding the force was Major General Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gibert Du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette...

...better known simply as Lafayette. Lafayette was just 20 years old, and this was his first command. A fabulously wealthy adventurer, the French volunteer had endeared himself to General Washington, who viewed him as the son he never had.

Unfortunately for the fledgling Americans, the British came out of Philadelphia that day. Generals Grant, Grey, and Clinton had the patriots nearly surrounded. Lafayette and his forces were lucky to escape that day.


You can see the distant heights on the left which rise above the river. Lafayette's men marched down Barren Hill Road in the hollow visible to the right of these heights. They then continued along the riverbank on the left of the picture. A mile or so further, near the center of the modern town of Conshohocken, Lafayette crossed the river to safety at Matson's Ford (which is now the name of the road that goes over a bridge at this site). Once across the river, he was protected from any British pursuit by heights similar to those on the right of the picture.

The forces of Clinton and Grant met up at Barren Hill, making it clear that "the boy Lafayette" had escaped. The British returned to Philadelphia, with Clinton and Grey getting back by 2 PM, but Grant's men arriving only in the evening after marching a total of forty miles that day.

Source

Pictures from the Real World Walk to follow.

Mile 467 - Saint Augustine

As of February 2, 2008 at 8:45 PM
Steps: 1,105,372
Miles: 470.65
Miles to Georgia: 62.35

The City of Saint Augustine is an old, old place in New World terms. St. Augustine was founded by the Spanish in 1565. The first Christian worship service held in a permanent settlement in the continental United States was a Catholic Mass celebrated in St. Augustine. In 1586, St. Augustine was attacked and burned by Sir Francis Drake. In 1668 it was plundered by pirates and most of the inhabitants were killed. In 1702 and 1740 it was unsuccessfully attacked by British forces from their new colonies in the Carolinas and Georgia.

But no story of Staint Augustine would omit two names, Juan Ponce De Leon and Henry Morrison Flagler.


Juan Ponce de Leon (c. 1460 – July 1521) was a Spanish conquistador. As a young man he joined the war to conquer Granada, the last Moorish state on the Iberian (Spain) peninsula. Ponce de Leon accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World. He became the first Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish Crown. He is also notable for his voyage to Florida, the first known European excursion there, as well as for being associated with the legend of the Fountain of Youth which is said to be in Florida.

Source


Henry Morrison Flagler (January 2, 1830 – May 20, 1913) was an American tycoon, real estate promoter, railroad developer and Rockefeller partner in Standard Oil. He was a key figure in the development of the eastern coast of Florida along the Atlantic Ocean and was founder of what became the Florida East Coast Railway. He is known as the father of Miami, Florida.

Henry Flagler's non-Standard Oil interests went in a different direction than Henry Rogers', however, when in 1878, on the advice of his physician, Flagler traveled to Jacksonville for the winter with his first wife, Mary (née Harkness) Flagler, who was quite ill. Two years after she died in 1881, he married again. Ida Alice (née Shourds) Flagler had been a caregiver for Mary Flagler. After their wedding, the couple traveled to Saint Augustine. Flagler found the city charming, but the hotel facilities and transportation systems inadequate. He recognized Florida's potential to attract out-of-state visitors.


Ponce de Leon Hotel

Though Flagler remained on the Board of Directors of Standard Oil, he gave up his day-to-day involvement in the corporation in order to pursue his interests in Florida. He returned to St. Augustine in 1885 and began construction on the 540-room Ponce de Leon Hotel. Realizing the need for a sound transportation system to support his hotel ventures, Flagler purchased the Jacksonville and Atlantic Railroad, the first railroad in what would become known as the "Flagler System" or the Florida East Coast Railway. He would eventually lay tracks the whole way down the east coast to Miami and then on to Key West.

Source


Saint Augustine Lighthouse


Plenty of Water for Sun and Fun The hotel Flagler built is in the background.

Trivial Quiz (in the second section) See how Saintly you are.