The past two days were spent in St. Augustine, FL, the first permanent settlement on the continental US. (The actual first settlement was San Juan, Puerto Rico.) The old Spanish fort is there, and they've restored some of the original houses so you can walk through them, which is all pretty interesting.
But like all places like that that aren't really interesting enough on their own, the entire, sweet little town is a giant tourist trap. There are approximately 8000 (just made that up) Bed and Breakfasts in the 2mi (just made that up) block. Then there are the restaurants. And the gift shops. And the entrance fees to lame ass living history museums. I can imagine what the living history museum workers think to themselves each day as they act out their roles: "These people are idiots - can't they see that I'm the blacksmith? I'm forging nails right here with glowing hot iron. What in hell do they think I'm doing? Stop it with the questions and go talk to the carpenter," and so on. Then there's the Ponce de Leon Fountain of Youth museum, which we didn't venture into because what would they show you? There's no fountain of youth and nothing Ponce declared as the fountain of youth.
There were signs galore for the Fountain of Youth on the way out to the outlet mall. I'll write that again so you can say it aloud - Oouuutlleeetttt Maaaaaallllll. It's a devil's snare. They lure you in with good prices on J.Crew and Gap clothes, which I love, and then you end up buying 3 pairs of shoes and 6 shirts from Banana Republic. Somewhere in the back of your mind you think, Do I need all of this stuff? But you stifle that thought with free samples from Harry and David that persuade you to buy chocolate covered bing cherries. Sinfully delicious.
Basically, this idea makes me think that even though we make fun of Ponce de Leon for looking for the fountain of youth, it's what everyone does, though we have make-up and vitamins and Proactiv and wrinkle cream and Viagra and other weird stuff like that. My closing thought is this: why do we all want to live so long anyway? Maybe that's morbid. I don't mean it like that. I suppose the youth part makes sense, but I'm just trying to figure out how to grow up. To get stunted at one age for a long period of time wouldn't help anything. We have very few comforts that are absolute. One is God. Another is that time will more forward no matter what with nothing we can do to stop it. So I'll jump on that train.
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