Day 6: Last Day and Trip Home

On our last day we wanted to check out Castillo de San Marcos in downtown St. Augustine. It is a very old fort that was built over 350 years ago. It is right on the water and was used to defend against sieges by sea. The fort changed hands between countries several times. Reading about its history and seeing it from the outside was neat. I found it hard to fathom that twice the fort was "besieged" and taken over. The idea that of a group of people traveling across the entire ocean on a bunch of old boats, could successfully overtake a group of people who are fully stocked with equipment and setup inside a fort that is lined with cannons on top. What are the odds of that?

Nolan had been fussy that morning so I opted to hang out with him outside and play on the lawn while Allyson and girls went inside to check it out.

Having not been inside myself, I can't comment on exactly what it's like, but they all came out saying how interesting it was.

I would be remiss if I did not note the crazy thing I witnessed while outside with Nolan. There is a dry moat around the fort that is about 10 feet deep in most areas. There are some stones around the top of it, but they are only like 8-10 inches high (you can see them in the picture of Nolan above. While I was walking with Nolan another little kid, probably right around his age, ran away from his parents and fell right down into the moat about 50 feet from us. Right as he was at the stones several of us yelled out for him to stop, but he went right over!

It became a pretty chaotic scene. People were yelling to call 9-1-1. The kid who fell was there with a large family and all of the adult family members were screaming at each other. The dad jumped down into the moat and then a few minutes later came up with the boy after walking around to another lower area of the moat. The little boy was crying so at least he survived the fall. The family quickly left the area and things eventually settled back down to normal. It was a wild event, and it left me feeling off for an hour or two.

After all that commotion died down, we walked back down St. George's Street on our way to the car and hit a few last souvenir shops. We then went back to the motorhome to pack up and begin heading back home. We really weren't sure how we wanted to handle the trip back. We would be leaving right around 2pm. We had about 15 hours to get back home, since we had to drop off the van. I was considering just driving straight back, through the night. However, the last time I did that was on the drive back from New Orleans (also 15 hours) during spring break, and it was rougher than I thought it would be. When I was younger I could just endlessly drive. But I'm an old man now, and now need to recover after long drives!

When you factor in the stops you need to make for gas and to let Nolan and the kids move around, a 15 hour drive becomes at least 18+hours. So at best we'd get back at 8am and I would have a long day ahead of me. We opted to drive up to the Charlotte area and sleep at a Cracker Barrel in Rock Hill, SC which was a little less than halfway home. But first we stopped for McDonald's.

We left early the next morning and finished the drive home, getting into town around 2pm. It was a little sad to come up I-77 and observe the amount of snow gradually increasing. Well, a little sad for me, but absolutely devastating for my poor wife. For the entire drive back, and some of Friday morning, we were treated to Allyson's endless grief about living in an area with poor winter weather.

We pulled into our snow-covered driveway around 2pm. This was the first significant snowfall of the season so the kids of course wanted to get out and play in it.

It was a lot of driving to get back, but it was worth it. This trip felt adventurous since we shifted plans at the absolute last minute. We also pushed our limits in terms of getting far away for a trip that was particularly long in duration. We got a break from the snow and were able to enjoy the beach, so everyone was happy. And the long drives aren't bad when they keep the cookies coming!