What good timing we had in our visit to St Augustine, we got here when the El Galeon was in port. We saw it there several days ago and thought it probably a restaurant or a ship that held mock pirate battles in the harbor. So, we just took a picture of it and moved on. However, yesterday we took a walk out the pier to check it out and get a better close-up picture of it and found out that it is neither of those. It is a $7,000,000, 175’, 495 ton replica of a Spanish galleon, very like the 650 ton ship one that Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles and 800 colonists sailed to American in. And, they give tours of it. Well, shiver me timbers.
The crew sailed it over here and are now sailing up and down the coast of America with it, giving tours and - selling mementos. We talked with the young woman at the bottom of the gangplank and decided to tour it today. Since it is moored here, we’re not going to be able to see it with its sails set out on the ocean, so I’ve got a picture from their materials here. This is not my picture. We wish we had seen it asail.
We found out that the hull was made of fiberglass but it looked like there was wood on the outside. Inside we saw a movie of the making of the ship which took 3 years and many craftsmen and workers. In it we saw these craftsmen using tools shaping wood so we know that most of it is original. Interesting - they were able to make this almost a exact copy because they have a wealth of information about the building and sailing of the original ship through the meticulous records kept by the Spanish in their archives.
We saw two of the crew working on the ship - looks like ships of today have some of the same problems as ships of yesteryear. Looks like that wood needs a bit of work.
We were able to tour most of the ship except the crew’s quarters but there was not much explanation about a galleon, its crew, its cargo, its history, its routes across and dangers faced on the Atlantic, or really much about the period. Neat ship but I’ve seen much more information about all of these in other ships that we have toured.
There are so many things to see and do in St Augustine and, of course, we are trying to see it all. Right. Won’t happen. But we can walk by and save for future trips. St Augustine can claim any number of firsts in America and one of these is the first Ripley’s Believe It or Not Odditorium in America. We walked by today and thought we’d wander through the parking lot to see what was there. And, we found several ‘oddities’ that caught our eye.
But, first, let’s take a look at the neat building in which the Ripley’s is housed. Interesting in itself. It was built as the winter home for William G Warden, a Standard Oil partner with Henry Flagler and John D. Rockefeller in St Augustine in 1887. He was also the Financial Director of Flagler’s St Augustine Improvement Company and President of the St Augustine Gas and Electric Company. The house was owned by the Warden family until the 1930’s. Robert Ripley, who drew the Ripley Believe It or Not cartoons in the newspaper, used to visit the home and thought it would be perfect for a museum that he wanted to create called - ‘Ripley’s Believe It or Not’ where he could display the oddities that he had collected and written about. He tried to buy the home but was not able. At one time the building was turned into a hotel where Marjorie Rawlings who wrote the Yearling, owned and lived in a penthouse on the top floor. Finally, Ripley’s heirs were able to buy it and in 1950 the nation’s first Ripley’s Believe It or Not ‘Odditorium’ opened in St Augustine. Believe It or Not.
First we saw Len Moore’s Log House, made out of one trunk of a Redwood Tree - in fact 4 separate ‘homes’ were gutted from the same Redwood tree. Before we all came to our senses and realized that the Redwoods were a finite resource and decided to preserve them, many were cut down for homes, for oddities, for tree houses like this one and to be split into thousands of little pieces so that anyone could have their own personal little Redwood trinket. The tree that this log was cut form was almost 2000 years old. How sad.
There is a sign in front of this Log House picturing a strangely ‘happy tree’. Constructed in 1938, it is 33’ long and 8’ high and has 4 rooms inside, a kitchen, a living room, a storage-bathroom and a bedroom. The creator, Len Moore, came up with this idea after finding shelter in a rain storm in a downed Redwood tree trunk. Hey, it I can find shelter here, maybe I can live here. And, he began to carve it out. Soon he had 4 rooms.
I especially liked the Craftsmen touches on the furniture.
By the way, notice that green tarp which covers the top of the log house. Yep, it leaks. Now, notice the metal bands around the tree. Yep, those hold it together.
In another corner of the parking lot, and I do mean corner, is a full-scale replica of Michelangelo’s David. It is one of only 2 in the world carved just like the original - out of 1 piece of Carrara marble quarried form Pietra Santa in Tuscany, where Michelangelo got his marble. Originally carved for the New York World’s Fair in 1964, it was bought by a Californian after the fair and installed in the gardens at a Wax Museum in CA. Later, it was acquired by Ripley’s Believe it or Not and brought to a garden here. When it was placed here, it was almost totally enclosed by bushes - to preserve the sensibilities of passers-by.
And, thus was our visit to Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
No comments:
Post a Comment