Volusia County Trifecta

Jon is on 2rd shift this week for the launch and Mason and I had the whole day free. Soooo off we went for some mom/son/letterboxing adventures!
First stop was the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach. The center was a surprise artist colony smack in the middle of some Florida scrub and home to one of the best LB's we have ever found!
DeLeon Springs has been on the to-do list for 2 years now, yay, we finally made it! Trivia, back in the 50's Sunshine was a big draw....No not sunshine in the sky, but Sunshine the water skiing elephant? Skiing pachyderms are no longer an attraction, thank goodness...The big draw now is a restaurant, the Old Spanish Sugar Mill where you cook your pancakes on the griddle right in the middle of the table. Mason and I interviewed one of the waitresses and turns out they do have a GF batter available, double yay!DeLeon Spring temps are 72 year round and even though this is April, we had a 93 degree day which made for a perfect combo!Last stop was Lake George SF in Astor and an excellent example of why we love LBing so. This park was way off the beaten path...On this particular afternoon, after driving down a 2.5 mile piece of it, we ended up on a peninsula jutting out into the St Johns River.
A perfect day except for the time where I was crying at the gas pump...

Fort Christmas

Saturday a much anticipated family day was set into motion and off to Fort Christmas we went. The place was really hoppin and we were surprised by how different the encampment was from last year? Like where are the re-enactors? A few questions later finally landed us a person in the know and we found out that because of the late Easter this year, the camp was scheduled 2 weeks ago and yes they were very sorry but no the website had not been updated. Yuh, well we were bummed for all of about 2 seconds...Turns out there was a HUGE 4-H Agricultural Festival going on and we were welcome to join in the fun!

Before electricity all sheep shearing was done the old fashioned way, with manual shears. This antique pair was almost but not quite up to the task, they were kind of rusty... Washing raw cotton... Sure it was a tedious and mindless job so they made the children do it. After a thorough 30 minute instructional on how to properly use a bow and arrow the 3 of us got the opportunity to shoot. Not to brag or anything but my first slung arrow was a bulls eye! The boys did pretty well themselves with plenty of bulls eye between us all. This could be a new family hobby?
We weren't all that impressed when the Fire Dept called the kids over and at first thought sure another fire truck demo...No, it was way cooler than that. This was a demo on how controlled fires are started and controlled, complete with actual visuals, they totally burnt up some grass! After the demos the kids had an opportunity to hold and use the fire hoses and make sure those fires were out!

One of the days surprises...There was this pen with gators in it and they encouraged folks to just lean on into it and pick one up! Jon grabbed the smallest fella, an approx 1 year old baby, he was too chicken to go for one of the toddlers!