Current location: Tampa, FL: N 27 59.190', W 082 30.362', elev. 45 ft. For you Yankees fans, I am 3 blocks from Legends Field, and I can see the two strip clubs all the players go to.

Yesterday, I left Jacksonville, and the gas prices in Jax were 50 cents higher than Georgia, it was an immediate jump as soon as I got into the city. Leaving Jacksonville took about 20 minutes, as I hit four traffic lights, each was five minutes long.

I rolled into St. Augustine, FL shortly after mid day. (Again, forgot to grab GPS coordinates). The first attraction I went to was the Fountain of Youth attraction. At $6, it was quite a bargain. It is a historical site, has an Indian burial ground and artifacts of Juan Ponce de Leon, the first European to establish a settlement in mainland United States. Features of the park include a Discovery Globe, a two story globe that shows the progress of Spanish explorers in the 1500s. Then, my tour group moved onto a planetarium show that explained in great detail how the Europeans were able to navigate using only an astrolabe and the stars. The show also explained that Spanish exploration ships were very small, the longest was only 85ft.

The highlight of the tour is the Fountain of Youth, the actual spring that Ponce de Leon thought granted curative powers. A part of the entrance fee, you get to drink the water (filtered). The water has sulfur dissolved in it, giving it a slightly bitter taste.

Next, I headed down the road to the Castillo de San Marco a Spanish fort dating to the 1500s. The entrance fee was again $6, but I got in for free with my National Parks Pass. I collected a third National Park Service map and guide. I love collecting these things, they are the perfect collector's item (free!) from the parks and monuments. I wonder if I can write for one from Denali.

Saint Augustine is absolutely beautiful, a great city that I'd like to take a long weekend in at some point in the future. Here are some photos from St. Augustine, the Fountain of Youth and Castillo de San Marco.

Next I drove down I-4 across the state, headed towards Tampa so I could go to the baseball game. On the way, I saw my first horrific accident of the trip, it was a 4 car pileup, and the cars were just charred. This really stuck out for me because I saw a charred wheel chair on the road as well. Sorry for the imagery, but this is my outlet for it.

Additionally, I saw a dead armadillo on the road, which kinda sucks since I've never seen a live armadillo.

On the way to Tampa, I passed through Orlando, which I would like to declare a sprawling wasteland. Orlando is the center of American consumerism and excess, but in an evil way that is the opposite of Las Vegas, a city I love. Orlando is a Mecca of all the fat and ugly Americans (which yes is ironic, if you've ever met me). I've never driven through Orlando before, only been in the car when other people have driven, but it just goes on and on, and every little thing is about squeezing the last dollar out of you. I propose sainthood, or at least beautification for any parents that bring their kids here miraculously without going on a six state killing spree afterwards.

I got to Tampa to go to the baseball game, and looked around for a cheap motel before realizing that the baseball stadium is actually 20 miles away, across the bay in St. Petersburg. Tropicana Field is an awful stadium, though not as bad as I thought it would be (I rank it higher than Olympic Stadium in Montreal, and RFK in DC). First off, it is a dome with artificial turf, which is an absolute travesty. Baseball should be played outside, during the day, on grass. Secondly, the turnout was the most sparse I've ever seen at a baseball game. There were so few people there, they didn't announce the attendance, but there couldn't have been more than 5000 people in attendance. The fans who were there were either Milwaukee Brewers fans, or die hard Devil Rays fans (or diehard Rays haters). The haters were fun, they were there just to drink beer and heckle the players on both sides. I paid $10 to park, but only $5 for a ticket to the game. My $5 ticket was for the upper deck, but I never made it up there. The place was so sparsely attended, the ushers were infrequently checking tickets to make sure I pad for the $47 seat I was sitting in. I was able to move down to the front row at one point. The highlight of the game for me was witnessing Prince Fielder (son of Cecil)'s first major league hit, a double. For a short, pudgy, fat man, he runs pretty fast. I took photos of the game, but none were really good enough to post on the web.