11/1/o6 (Wednesday): Can you believe it's November already?! We're settling in nicely and getting a routine going. I love being able to spend so much time with Wiley. We're pretty much setting our own schedule. There's a lot of flexibility. A list of tasks is posted on the barn door and we pick what we want to do each day. Yesterday we did some trail maintenance in the morning and then I spent all afternoon in the office because the office manager needed an afternoon off. Wiley finished up the trail work by himself.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I want to bring the blog up to date before I go any further. Today I'll give you the treasure story I promised you! We decided to take a drive out Rt. 60 to Vero Beach, which is our closest beach. It was kind of drizzly out and the road was under construction, but it was very rural and pretty and there was almost no traffic. Vero beach is a cute little town. It looked old, but I don't know much about its history. We'll have to do a little exploring there.

We headed north on A1A with the vague idea of going to Sebastian Inlet State Park, but we got sidetracked by a sign for the McLarty Treasure Museum.

This is a small but fascinating museum run by the state. It's located on the site of the 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet survivor's and salvaging camp. From the 1500's through the 1700's, Spain dug a bunch of silver and some gold out of the mountains in Mexico and South America and sent it across the Atlantic in wooden sailing vessels. The outgoing and incoming ships would meet every summer in Cuba. they also carried treasures from the Orient gathered by the fleet that had been shipped across the Pacific to Mexico and other places they'd traveled, plus the personal treasures of their wealthy passengers. Spain had warships and forts to protect this shipping traffic, but hurricanes wrecked many ships.

One of the largest disasters occurred in 1715, when a storm sunk that year's fleet on the shoals between Sebastian and Fort Pierce. About 1500 people survived and came ashore. They set up a camp and began salvage operations with the help of the Ais Indians and, eventually, the Spanish in St. Augustine. But conditions were very harsh and many died. Less than half of the treasure cargo reached Spain. The wreck was rediscovered in 1928 and some historical artifacts were recovered in the 1940's. Then, in the 1950's, a hurricane revealed the site where the museum is now located. Divers and beachcombers have been retrieving treasure ever since. The finds are truly stunning! If you ever get the chance, it's worth a visit. Wiley is looking forward to going back with his metal detector!

There's also a nice little nature trail. Here are some pics of the interesting "treasures" I saw on my walk. This plant is called "bloodberry."




Black racer (?) on rocks by beach.
















The white-flowered plant growing among the sea grapes is called "devil's potato." It had a very pleasant fragrance. I don't know the reason for the awful name--maybe its root looks like a potato but is inedible.









That's it for another day--my wrist gets fatigued if I type too long. Tomorrow's blog will be the last of the catch-up ones. I'll talk about a rare sighting we made while hiking the Lake Arbuckle trail. Happy trails to you!