So I do have time for a morning post today.

We are leaving the condo this morning and heading to Jacksonville.  Our goal is to drive off at 10 a.m., so we got up at 6.  We waived the cleaning fee on this place, so that means we have to do it ourselves.  We are currently washing the sheets and will then make up the bed.  I washed all the towels last night with our final load of laundry, and they are all folded and put away.  We brought in a beach towel from the car for each of us to use for our morning showers.

We have to clean the bathroom and kitchen and vacuum the whole place, too.  I've already emptied the dishwasher.  Anything we use for breakfast this morning, I will wash by hand and put away.  We have left them a new roll of paper towels and toilet paper to make up for what was here that we used.  We knew we would have to do that, so we brought stuff from home.  We also brought our own laundry detergent and dishwasher pods.  We never cooked anything here other than microwaving a few things and making coffee, so there weren't that many dishes used anyway.  We loved the condo and it's beachy decor, but it's so much easier to walk away from a hotel room!  We are kind of regretting waiving that $75 cleaning fee now!  lol

Yesterday, we had a final day here and enjoyed Fort Matanzas and Ripley's Believe It or Not.  We were relaxing in the condo by 4:30 p.m. for the rest of the night. Mark found an episode of the Ghost Hunters TV show where they investigated the Old Jail here in St. Augustine.  They didn't find much, but it was fun to watch having just been there.  There really were a lot of things we did not have time or energy or knees/backs to explore like the Wintery and Distillery, Government House, the Plaza, river cruises, and beaches, and so much more.  It would be easy to do another three days in St. Augustine, but we probably won't because there are so many other places in Florida to explore.  Currently, we would like to do a road trip down to Key West and stop at lots of the other keys on the way down and back.  We are thinking of making that next summer's road trip.

Today Mark has a 1 p.m. session at the conference.  Then there is a 5 p.m. General Session.  Joe Theisman is the speaker, which should be interesting.  At 6 p.m. there is a Welcome Reception, then we'll find a place for dinner.  Vacation is over.  Conference time is beginning.

Here are our pictures from yesterday.

25 minute drive from our condo.  Great drive along A1A.

Boarding the free ferry to run over to the other island where the fort is.

It's a very small fort, six cannons, seven men stationed there.  The second level houses the six soldiers and the top level houses the one officer there to "keep them in line."  Men would serve 30 days as a tour of duty coming out of the Castillo de San Marcos just up the river.  This was built to protect the "back door" to St.  Augustine up the Matanzas River, which is really an inlet, not a river.

I got this new shirt yesterday at the Castillo de San Marcos gift shop.

Inside the soldiers' living quarters.

View from the second level.  A lot of jet skis were going  down the river.

Mark was a little too tall to stand in the sentry box.

I had no trouble standing up in there!

Mark is standing by one of the two original cannons here found on site when the Park Service took over the crumbling structure and restored it.

Got my next passport stamp.

Then we had a Subway picnic lunch under the shade of one of the many live oak tress on the property.

Next, Ripley's. This is the first and original one!  It's in a building called Castle Walden. It was built as a winter residence for Walden and his 14 children, and yet it had only one bathroom originally  At the time indoor plumbing was still pretty unusual,  During WWII, it was a hotel owned by the author of The Yearling, Marjorie Rawlings. Ripley liked it and always wanted to buy it to display all his oddities in a museum.  It didn't happen until his family  bought it after his death and made his dream  come true in 1950.

Mark studies every case of exhibits on all three floors.

I'll just show two of my favorites.

Star Wars characters' heads carved on the tops of crayons.  Kind of cool.