The photo to the right is of  Terri DiMattio, Superintendent of Cabrillo National Monument.  After an exahusting weekend of dealing with crowds in the thousands like this:      He made a  request to try on the armor.  I found this incredibly noteworthy in an administrator who should have desired nothing more than to go home.

	A quick look at the shoreline of Cabrillo National Monument explains why the landing reenactment takes place at the Naval Base and not at the Park.
On Monday morning John Golda took me down to the tidepool area for my first chance to touch the great South Sea.  Although dressed in modern clothing rather than my armor because I had to catch my flight out an hour,  I did take the opportunity to claim this New Land for Spain in the name of Hernando de Soto.

 
 

Entitled "Surf'n Safari" this painting greets you at the luggage carrousel at the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport.  As an exercise for the student this illustration is filled with technical errors that one can look while waiting to see if your armor bag made it across the continent.  I doubt that the historical De Soto would have been smiling that way, much less carrying his own luggage, but it did seem to sum up my feelings about this trip.

 
 

Questions, comments, suggestions, bad links, spelling mistakes, grammar errors and the five simple actions that will turn me into a mental wizard overnight can be directed to:

I noticed the following while waiting, and BTW the armor bag did make it across county intact.  The conquistador is presemably Hernado de Soto who has been assocated with Bardenton since the 1930's.

• The ship pictured is the "Golden Hind", Sir Francis Drake's Ship of the later half of the century.
• The ship if flying the modern Spanish flag, not either the Lions & Castles or the Burgandian cross that would have been in use then.
• The cup hilt rapier and baldric are classic 17th C. accruements.
• The clown suit "ruff" has no historical ascendant, much less a 16th C. one, that I am aware of.