Wow.... woke up to a really chilly morning and wind howling around the trailer. What woke me up evidently were these big 'thunks' I kept hearing on top of the roof. Turns out that it was the dead and dry 'limbs' off the palm tree I'm parked under. Thank god it wasn't a coconut palm, that would of been a disaster.

    Got up pretty early today considering how long I was up yesterday and how few hours of sleep I got last night and the night before. Was up and eating breakfast and reading the comics in time to listen to the 'Car Guys' on NPR at least.

    Had hoped to go for a nice bike ride today, but with the cold and the wind I just spent the day inside with the heaters running. Right now the temp is down to 34 degrees and it is suppose to sink well below freezing tonight. I went out and drained the tanks this evening, but left the hose connected in the hopes that it won't get so cold as to freeze it enough to crack.

    So today was spent in reading my book. Am up to the 4th one in Patrick O'Brians 'Master and Commander' series. Obviously interesting material to me but I can't help comparing them to the old C.S Forester 'Hornblower' series. In some ways I think Hornblower might be even better. Easier to read for sure, but then it was geared more for teenage boys, which is what I was when I first read it.

   Also spent an hour and got my tax's done for the year and all sent off. Used Turbo Tax again this year but I will be using something else next year if I can find it. In the past years if you bought the 'Deluxe' Turbo Tax package they included one state income tax software download with it. You still had to pay them $20 if you wanted to file your state form electronically, the Federal being free. But this year they made you pay $40 extra bucks for the state download. Of course I didn't notice they didn't have it listed on the package when I bought it, just assuming it would be the same as in the past. So with the cost of the original package, $48 and the cost of the state software and filing fee you're now over $100 for what is, in my case, a 1040EZ form. On the other hand it is now all done for another year so I can spend the next 12 months forgetting about it all. The good news is that I do get a bit of money back from both, so I'm pretty happy today over all.

    The only other thing I did today was watch the 'Wizard of Oz' movie again, but this time with the commentary. It was fun to hear and see some of the little things you never noticed, like how 'Dorthy' lost her ruby slippers for a few moments while dancing with the cowardly lion. Or how her pig tails kept changing length in one scene with the wizard. Just stuff like that. So now I feel caught up on it enough to go see the new one when it comes out.

   Posted a few more photo's down below. These are from yesterday when I drove over to St Augustine and had lunch with my friend from Colorado and her kids. Most are just more pictures of Flagler College, but they might be different enough to interest a few of you.

A trip to St Augustine for lunch with Steph and her kids.      March 2, 2013

A front view of what use to be Henry Flagler's first hotel in the St Augustine area. It is now a liberal arts college.

Another view of the front facade.

A view of some of the arches that surround the interior courtyard and gardens of the building.

Every where you look are little details that just make the whole building special. It always amazes me what being rich must be like. The use of this lion detail shows up in many places including the exterior sides of some of the fireplace chimneys way up above the 3rd floor.

My friend Stephanie and her son Bobby and his wife Josephina. You can see that it was a bit cold over there yesterday too.

More neat details. These are actually water fountains, but they weren't running yesterday.

Me and Steph. She's always a lot of fun to hang out with and it was nice to meet her son and his wife finally.

Inside the front doors of the building you have an octagonal atrium with this 3 story high dome and skylight. The whole thing reminded me of a lot of architecture I saw in Italy. But we seem to use a lot more wood as accents, where as they pretty much just used stone.

Across the street was what was once the Hotel Alcasar, (sp) Flagler's second hotel. A lot of neat  features in it also, the one that most comes to mind is the block long indoor swimming pool they had in the back where Johnny Weismiller (sp) would practice between Tarzan movies. It is now the Lightner Museum, a wonderful place to go see turn of the century 'stuff'.

Built by one of Flaglers competitors this hotel stands catty-corner to Flagler's first one. Opened soon after Flagler's opened, the owner didn't have the pull, connections nor the means to get guests down to St Augustine, so he had only 3 paying guests the whole first year it was opened. He soon sold out to Flagler for pennies on the dollar and Flagler remained king of the heap. It is now the 'Case Monica' hotel.

More pictures of the Catholic church with the Wells Fargo Building in the background.

The tower of the Wells Fargo Building.

We walked down the main shopping road there and found this guy and his dog in one of the side roads. He was doing a pretty good business really, but I think it was more because of the dog and not his playing. Though his playing was actually quite good too.

A close up of one of the towers on the College.



One last view.