The official travel journal of Jerry & Ann Linebarger
www.linebloggers.com
Just where Ann wants him!
Henry Flagler built the posh Ponce de Leon Hotel on Cordova Street in St. Augustine. It was next door to the county jail and that's why Flagler built a new jail in another location and donated it to the city. The hotel now houses Flagler College.
Fort Matanzas, a tiny little fort 16 miles south of St. Augustine, was erected to protect the "backdoor" to St. Augustine via the Matanzas River. Little Fort Matanzas and its handful of 7 or 8 soldiers did their jobs well. No one, neither the British nor pirates, ever attacked St. Augustine again once the fort was built. It is now a national monument.
The costumed interpreter shared stories of life at the fort. Soldiers served 30 days at a time at the fort.
We visited the John F. Kennedy Space Center where we learned much about the U.S. space program.
The Assembly Building is the final assembly point where the rockets and their boosters are assembled before launch. Notice the tall doors on the left side which enable the fully assembled rockets to be placed on a "crawler" and rolled out to launch pads 39A or B. The crawler itself weighs 6 million pounds but once the rocket and booster are added, the weight is 18 million pounds. To provide a reference point on the size of this building, the flag is 21 stories high. The building itself is over 500 feet tall, about 1/2 as high as the Empire State Building. But the building is so large that you could put 3 1/2 Empire State Buildings inside it. You could put all of Yankee Stadium on the roof and still have an acre left over for parking. Needless to say, the photo doesn't do justice to the enormity of this building.
