St. Augustine Lighthouse (Florida) – In Another Minute (Week 290)
St. Augustine, in Northern Florida, is the site of the oldest
permanent aid to navigation in North America, starting with a Spanish
watchtower built in the 1500s. The present St. Augustine Lighthouse
stands 165 feet tall on Anastasia Island, off the Atlantic Ocean. This
structure was built in the late 1800s and still uses the original 1874
hand-blown, nine-foot-tall, Fresnel lens, from Paris, France.
This
week, Scott and I traveled to Florida to surprise his grandmother
Carolyn Capp and the whole family with a paver stone on the path to the
St. Augustine Lighthouse: Celebrating the love and light of Henry and
Carolyn Capp and their family.
We climbed the 219 steps to enjoy
and now share the uplifting views of St. Augustine: the historic
downtown with the Bridge of Lions and Flagler College, the Matanzas
River, the Salt Run, Anastasia Island, and the Atlantic Ocean beyond.
The song in this video is “Second Nature” by Jason Shaw of Audinautix.com. He has made this and many other cool songs available via a CC BY 3.0 license. Thank you, Jason!
More videos from Florida:
St. Augustine (Florida) – In Another Minute (Week 248)
Sanibel + Captiva Islands (Florida) – In Another Minute (Week 104)
Meeting Bobby Brown + New Edition – In A Brooklyn Minute (Week 103)
Relaxing Beach (Vilano Beach, Florida) – In Another Minute (Week 83)
North Florida – In Another Minute (Week 79)
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| St. Augustine Lighthouse Florida |
The following text I wrote as the introduction to sharing this
video on Facebook and Google+ on November 22nd. Once I had written it, I
realized I wanted to include it in this post as well:
It
seems that within the last week, I keep being reminded more and more of
family and of how precious life is. The attacks in Paris, making sure
my cousins in France are okay, a trip to see Scott’s grandmother, mother
and other family, a dear friend’s mother passing away, my anxiety about
flying through Frankfurt (during this time of terrorist threats) on an
upcoming trip to see my family, laughing with both my parents when we
chatted via Facetime earlier today, planning a group trip for Scott and
my 20th anniversary with those of our friends who have become our
family…
All these thoughts and reminders and associated
emotions swirl around my head and heart. Family is so universal, yet
unique. Life is so fragile and finite. I think about how important it is
to be together, to reach out, to be kind to one another and to express
our love, appreciation, gratitude – especially with family, but not
only. Sometimes that’s very difficult, sometimes it’s easy. But it
always matters.
My video for this week captures such an
expression of love, appreciation and gratitude for Scott’s grandfather
(who passed away 10 years ago) and Scott’s grandmother and all their
children, grandchildren and the whole gang. We took an opportunity to
express this via a paver stone at the St. Augustine Lighthouse, which
was special to Scott’s grandfather and, being a helpful beacon of light,
is probably a meaningful symbol to most people.
One doesn’t
have to make grand gestures to show one’s appreciation for another
person. But I hope that my video, and maybe my words, will inspire you
to reach out to a loved one today and tell them that you appreciate
them, that you’re grateful for them – no matter if through a grand
gesture or just a quick text. Just do it before tomorrow may change
everything yet again.