One sure attention-getting sight and sound is the ceremonial firing of the fort's black powder cannons.
It wouldn't do to blast a cannonball more than a mile in present-day St. Augustine, Fl. So specially trained, stand-in soldiers -- garbed in Spanish Empire blue, white and red -- instead stuff five pounds of bread into the iron barrel and let it fly.
Evacuating the Firing Zone
Before the big bang, park rangers and other castillo crew shoo dawdlers from the long-dry moat beneath the fort's eastern gun deck where the demonstration takes place. The visitors scurry past the hot shot furnace, built by the U.S. Army in the 1840s to heat cannonballs to a red-hot glow.