Day 1, Tuesday, Feb 28: Mashpee MA to Meriden, CT
** NOTE: Some information contained herein about certain sights is quoted verbatim from the Roadside America© website, an invaluable resource for us wanderers.
Here we go again; another rambling discourse on our travels and adventures on the road, this time (hopefully) to Florida and back; south via the standard I-95 snowbird route, and back through Alabama and eastern Tennessee. For us, a lot of this covers places we’ve been before (certainly the southeast and the Florida Atlantic coast), but we’ve tried to plan some new and interesting roadside stops to enlighten, entertain and confuse our reading public. As always, comments and opinions expressed within are ours only, and in no way should reflect negatively on any specific locations, landmarks, memorials, customs, fashions, laws, beliefs, merchants or wait staff…
So bright and early Tuesday morning, the little red VUE, with its little ol’ driver and his navigator,(note how wisely the writer remembered to leave off the ‘ol’ prefix before the word ‘navigator’) and interior stuffed to the edges with travel necessities, hit the road. First was a stop in CT at the dentist (never travel with dirty teeth; it sends a bad message about us Yankees to them southern folks…), and an overnight stay in Meriden at our favorite hotel (le Inne du Qualite’ on the Turnpike du Berlin). Positive note: Dinner was at the Sans Souci, a local Meriden eatery known for their beef. For all the years we lived in the Hartford area, and had heard about the place, we never got there. It was very good, and in spite of its odd location, we highly recommend it. (Thank you Connecticut Dining Club and R. & C. T.)
Day 2, Wednesday, Feb. 29 (Leap Day!!): Meriden CT to Atlantic City, NJ
Today it was west on 84 and south to Atlantic City through rain, sleet and snow. Not much accumulation, but more snow then we’d seen in months! Hit Tropicana at about 3:00 pm, and just started sucking the cash right out of the place. Yeah, right… Real gamblers bring lots of dough, and play cards and the table games, and take it all very seriously. We fun player’s plant ourselves in front of a penny slot for hours with a five dollar bill, and if lucky, leave with $10. Or maybe $5. Or maybe nothing. It’s sort of like being a Perdue chicken; life is good for a while, the accommodations are wonderful, the ambiance is extraordinary, but unless you are really lucky, you know how it’s all going to end…Day 3, Thursday, March 1: Atlantic City, NJ
More gamblin’. The weather was quite cooperative this trip (sunny, low 60’s), so a long walk (off a short pier…) along the Boardwalk was a nice break from the casino. “People watching” is as entertaining as playing. It always amazes us the number of seniors we see who can barely walk, see, or maneuver on their own, who manage to get right up there to the big flashing slot machine and just play away… good for them! (and to hell with their heirs just waiting in the wings).Day 4, Friday, March 2: Atlantic City to Fredericksburg, VA
I wonder how many New Englanders, for the first time, look at the map and say: “Let’s just jump on I-95 south and zip down through Delaware, Maryland, DC and Virginia before we stay overnight”. We’ve done this a number of times now, and have decided that there is no commuter hour in the greater DC area. People leave home in wee dark hours of the am, spend half the day in traffic, then spend a few more hours getting off and back on the interstate before heading home, only to arrive late in the night, sleep a couple of hours, then do it again. Perhaps all the in-car cell phone use is simply people who work from their car instead of an office or their home. We also wonder about DC parking garages; most of the cars are on the interstate; are there any in the garages?? Highlights of the day:· A 20-Foot-Tall California raisin statue salvaged from an out-of-business golf course and transformed into large yard decor. Why?
· A Muffler Man with a straw hat and an Alfred E. Newman head, holding a neon hamburger sign. Muffler Men are a complete subset of Roadside America attractions. Apparently there are people who just track down M-Men. And you think we are weird…
· Bill Haley was a superstar in 1955. His hometown memorial is so obscure that most people don't even know that it's a memorial. All there is to it are some rubber notes and a star inlaid in the sidewalk in front of a vacant lot where the recording studio was where Haley got his start. All in a rather seedy part of town…but yet there are people like us who go out of their way to see this ‘display’.
· A huge doctor's bag with stethoscope; a giant version of a leather house call bag, stethoscope overflowing out the top, in front of a medical group practice building. Going to be a real debit should they ever decide to re-purpose the place….
· The Hoodoo Marker. A stone monolith (microlith?) about 4 feet tall inscribed with some property boundary babble, along with the words: "Cursed be he that removeth..." It apparently hasn't been removed in over 200 years, so people are paying attention.
· The world's only surviving wrought iron bridge. The Bollman Quite fascinating from an engineering aspect… (Those of us living with said engineering minds have learned to overcome our boredom and technical confusion and managed to learn many interesting things along the way.)
o Weather still wet, but not as cold (mostly in the 40’s)
o Oh, and remind us to tell you about Fluffy and Velcro…
· The trapizian House, built with no square corners, built this way by the owner supposedly on the advice of his West Indian slave who told him such a design could not harbor evil spirits.
· A VERY tall Daniel Boone statue, that with the addition of a 20 gal oil drum on his head for a fez, was converted to a Shriner landmark, in front of their local lodge
· The world’s tallest replica of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. (so what, you might ask…when you’ve already seen the real thing, this makes no sense)
· Another lighthouse at the Kenley 95 truck stop. (interesting side note: The Kenley I-95 Truck Stop is a very scaled down version of the world’s largest truck stop, the Iowa-80 in Walcott, Iowa, visited by your noble correspondents a couple of years ago…)
· And finally, the best roadside of the day, Vollis Simpsons whirligigs. Probably a couple of dozen scrap metal whirligigs, some as tall as 40 feet, scattered around an open piece of property, including a ramshackle workshop where he built them. And they actually work…some people just have strange hobbies…(but no worse than the Ripley’s Believe it or not people who spend hours creating things from dryer lint).
· Oh, and least I forget, everybody heading south has to stop at two places: South-Of-The-Border (once, several trips ago; never again!) and JR’s in Selma, North Carolina. JR’s started out (I think) as a low cost tobacco products store, and has now become a retail mecca for all sorts of merchandise; some good stuff at very reasonable prices, and some really cheesy stuff whose value and therefore price is subject to conjecture. But it’s always packed with shoppers…(one of whom we witnessed wipe out half a wine pyramid display with a shopping cart).
o Weather a little better; still damp, but up into the mid 60’s.
Day 6, Sunday, March 4: Fayetteville, NC to Summerville, SC
Quick report today. No attractions; drove straight to Summerville, visit with relatives, overnight in Summerville. Weather much improved; still in the 60’s, and windy, but seems much warmer with the bright sunshine.Day 7, Monday, March 5: Summerville, SC to Kingsland, GA
Had to do some shopping; first Wal-Mart, for supplies, then Bealls Outlet (in Savannah, GA), one of the navigator’s favorite bargain retailers. Only in Florida, Georgia and Arizona. Like all outlet stores, lots of stuff that isn’t such a great deal, but every so often, a real find. (The driver has been buying his fav Levi 501 jeans ($54 retail) for less than half that at Bealls for years…). Got in a few attractions (they’re getting thinner as we head south; a lot of this is a repeat of past trips…)· A pair of large elephants, one pink and one gray, in front of a fireworks store. Giant elephants must have been a very popular advertising gimmick at one time; we’ve seen them all over the country, in various attention-getting roles.
· An antique store advertising: “Dead Peoples Things For Sale”. But the store had a sign out front that said “SHUT”. The story goes that when the irascible owner was asked why the name “Dead Peoples Things For Sale”, his reply was “That’s what I sell”. Similarly, when asked why the sign says “Shut” instead of the more conventional “Closed”, his response was that it took less paint to say “Shut” than “Closed”.
o Weather getting much better; sunny, still breezy, but up into the mid 60’s
Day 8, Tuesday, March 6: Kingsland, GA to Merritt Island, FL
Mostly a driving day (anxious to get to the sunshine and palm trees, I think…). The best (worst?) part of the day was well after we had had dinner and checked in at our hotel. Next door was the “Shuttle Dugout” bar and grill. Supposedly, both this place, and its twin located elsewhere on Merritt Island, were favorite hangouts for the NASA astronauts when they needed a little party time. But now, I guess due to the space exploration cutbacks, it was pretty dead, even during happy hour. The driver and his navigator were about the only patrons, until some locals wandered in and downed a pitcher of beer and played some old (like 1950’s old) country music on the jukebox. Hum, guess we should have stayed in Daytona with the bikers.· The only attraction today was an old foundation located in New Smyrna Beach, the fascination being nobody seems to be really clear on the facts pertinent to the age, the use, or the events surrounding the destruction of the colonial era building that was (or may not have been) on this site…
o Weather still ok; some clouds, breezy, but up to the low 70’s
Day 9, Wednesday, March 7: Merritt Island FL to Jupiter, FL
First stop was at a roadside “Big Orange” that wasn’t there… One of the frequent risks of tracking down the inane and absurd is that sometimes things that may have at one time seemed worthy of leaving intact have been moved, destroyed or have simply disintegrated. However, we did see…(and not all ridiculous stuff):· The Manatee Education Center in Fort Pierce, FL. Though there were no manatees too be seen in the adjacent Indian River, there was an interesting little display center with numerous factoids about manatees and other endangered sea creatures, all hosted by the typical dedicated staff. (There are “fish people”, just like on the Cape we have “dolphin people” who are always trying to rescue stranded dolphins that have beached…)
· Just up the beach from the Manatee Center, in a municipal waterfront park, was a small garden and statue of Cee Cee Ross-Lyles, a Fort Pierce resident and flight attendant on United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. A terrible irony is that Cee Cee had given up her job as a Fort Pierce police officer in order to become a flight attendant because she wanted a job with less stress. In her final moments, she used her cell phone to speak to her husband, Lorne. She told him how much she loved him and the children and that she hoped she would see them again. Cee Cee was thirty-three years old. A very tasteful and compassionate memorial to a local citizen.
· Then it was off to Blowing Rocks, in Hobe Sound. Winter storms and extreme high tides send waves surging against the craggy limestone shore that force geysers of water as high as 50 feet into the air. This didn’t happen when we were there…Though the dark, jagged rocks do – at first glance – look like the remains of a misplaced lava flow; they are actually a specific type of sedimentary rock called Anastasia limestone. Scientists disagree on exactly how far inland the limestone extends, exactly when it was formed (most likely around 120,000 years ago, in the Pleistocene Age) and whether it was formed by a single event or by multiple changes in sea level. A few things scientists can agree on are:
o Anastasia limestone extends along Florida’s coast from St. Augustine to Boca Raton, and
o Blowing Rocks Preserve harbors the largest outcropping on the U.S. Atlantic Coast.
· The exposed rock at the preserve is unusual, not because Anastasia limestone is particularly rare, but because it is commonly found either underground or underwater.
· Then a quick stop and photo op at the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse. We passed up on the tour; we’re at the point where having seen one Fresnel lens, you’ve pretty much seen them all. Plus, because it is at a working Coast Guard Station, you don’t just go up to the lighthouse and freely wander around, like we can at Nobska in Woods Hole…
· Oh, and another Bealls store…
Dinner was at the Waterway Café, in Palm Beach Gardens. This was an old dining favorite of the driver’s back in his Pratt & Whitney days, when he was doing an extended stretch of Florida visits. Still just as good as 16 years ago, plus we were there in time for the “Twilight Dinner”, with pricing so attractive that even the gold coast seniors can’t resist. We know, they were all there, blue hair and all.
o Weather: much warmer (low to high 70’s), viable full sun to cloudy, VERY windy.
Day 10, Thursday, March 8: Jupiter, FL to Naples, FL
Not a lot to report today. · A stop in Hillsboro Beach at statue to the Barefoot Mailman, commemorating postal workers who delivered the mail solely on foot (get it?) along the Atlantic Coast. Eleven barefoot mailmen carried mail along the beaches between Palm Beach and Miami in the late 1800s. One of them, James "Ed" Hamilton, disappeared in 1887 near Hillsboro Inlet. Some speculate that he was swimming across the inlet to complete his route when he was eaten by alligators. Better roads ended the need for barefoot mailmen. But they weren't forgotten, and in 1973 a ten-foot-tall stone statue of one was erected in front of the Barefoot Mailman Hotel. Fifteen years later the hotel burned down, but the town paid to have the statue moved to the front of municipal hall. Then it paid to have a second Barefoot Mailman statue made, in bronze, which still stands there today. The original eventually was moved to the Coast Guard's Hillsboro Inlet Light Station, overlooking the place where Hamilton disappeared.
· Then it was off to Naples, with the goal being Marco Island and South Marco Beach (to collect shells, of course…). However, once we got to Marco Island, we started playing this silly south Florida weather game; drive a while in bright sunshine, be convinced you’re going to hit the beach, then have the skies open up, necessitating a complete reversal of route, only to drive back into the sunshine. By the time you’ve re-reversed, and headed back to the beach, it raining again. Finally, we gave up, went to our hotel in time for Tiki bar happy hour, got happy, and went out to dinner.
· Weather (other than the tropical deluges) is usually low 70’s early in the morning, low to mid 80’s rest of the day.
· First stop was South Marco Beach, beautiful day, high 80’s, sunshine, and lots of shells. We assume the serious collectors know the right spots and get there early; most of the shells on the beach are intact, but small and bleached. The sand is a lot harder than at the Cape (more crushed shell, less sand, I think).
· Next, we stopped at a very small, in town car show (or maybe it was just a bunch of old guys who had interesting cars) in a strip mall parking lot. Actually, there were several interesting vehicles, all the way from 50’s and 60’s classics to a couple of Corvettes and a new Audi R8.
· Then, on to the Koreshan Unity Settlement State Historic Site is Estero, FL. Founded in the late 19th century by one Cyrus Teed, it turned out to be a much more extensive and interesting attraction than anticipated; a “community” layout consisting of 8 to 10 buildings and well maintained grounds. It’s a long, weird story, but not unlike many other late 19th century / early 20th century utopian societies led by somewhat egomaniacal, charismatic self-appointed saviors. The two biggest contributors to the final demise of this particular bunch was one, they believed the earth existed on the inner surface of a hollow sphere, with the sun and planets suspended in the center (don’t know how they explained night and day), and two, their vow of celibacy. We’ve heard this many times before regarding these utopian societies, that recruitment alone will provide sustained membership, if not even growth. But you need really good salesman with a really good pitch to make it work year in and year out. And at Koreshan Unity, it didn’t work…
· Next up was Sanibel and Captiva Islands. Both are very different than Marco, which was wall-to-wall stores, traffic, lots of people with money oozing out of their pores, high-end shops and bistros and very expensive looking apartment / condominium high-rises.
Captiva (new money) seems to be mostly very (very) exclusive, very (very) expensive waterfront homes, with a few little shops and bistros. Way out of our league.
Sanibel (old money), however, in addition to having a really picturesque old lighthouse, looked like the epitome of the Jimmy Buffet Florida, a more old-style, laid back relaxed atmosphere. You could almost picture ending up here with a few dollars for margaritas, a couple of pairs of shorts and tee shirts, maybe a fishing pole and guitar, and actually surviving and having a simple, but good life. Oh, and maybe a couple of million dollars to buy a home…
· Then the rest of the evening was spent sitting in traffic getting to Ft. Myers, dealing with all of the crazy drivers who mess up the traffic at home all summer, making a shambles of traffic in Florida during the winter. Favorites:
o Right turn on red, EVEN WHEN THERE IS TRAFFIC COMING THAT HAS THE RIGHT-OF-WAY!
o Right turn on red from left of two right turn lanes;
o Never signal lane changes; in fact, never even really commit to changing lanes; just sort of meander back and forth from one to the other.
o NEVER let anyone into a line of traffic, even if said line is at a virtual standstill;
o Complete disregard for parking lot markings; all the big arrows painted on the pavement, and the fact that all the cars are parked at an angle opposite to the direction you’re going, means nothing;
o And most important, do it all in $100,000+ vehicles…
§ Weather: sunny, warm (80’s), afternoon showers
· A giant head of Beethoven (a good 45’ tall!) at some New University Pyramid Village in Ft. Myers (some kind of a resort for the new agers, I think…)
· Giant Tervis Tumbler at the Tervis Tumbler Corporation (you know what a Tervis Tumbler is, of course; that ubiquitous double-walled plastic drink holder with any number of patterns (like straw mat, flowers), designs, logos, etc., in the air space between the inner and outer walls?)
· A house in Sarasota that was built to replicate a lighthouse, with an adjacent garage that looked like a boat. (Got to wonder if they have a boat that looks like a pick-up truck…)
· The best, last… A huge statue “Unconditional Surrender”, right on the waterfront in Sarasota, based on a famous 1945 Life Magazine picture of two people kissing in Times Square following the end of World War II.
o Weather: No rain, high 70’s, mid 80’s
Final thought for the day…you know that your GPS disc is outdated when you go looking for a restaurant; find it about 15 miles away, then return to your lodging via a different route, only to see another of THE EXACT SAME RESTURANT about 5 minutes from the hotel!!
Day 13, Sunday, March 11: Bradenton, FL to Clearwater, FL
Another weekend day in Florida, another flea market…· Really good stop today was the Manatee Viewing Center in Apollo Beach. Even though you don’t see them right up close and personal, they are visible out there lolling around. The whole viewing / education facility is run by the local mega power plant owners, Tampa Electric Big Bend. Very well done, and a nice cooperative effort between big business and wildlife support…
· Last stop was at a somewhat strange 214 foot tall water tower in Tampa. For some reason, it was designed to look like a medieval castle tower; or maybe a minaret…or maybe a lighthouse (here we go with the lighthouse theme, again…)
o Weather: a little cloudier, no rain, still in the 80’s during the day.
Day 14, Monday, March 12: Clearwater, FL to Spring Hill, FL
· The first sight we had to track down was an “auto parts lizard”, mounted on the roof of a St. Petersburg municipal building. One of the fun parts about seeking out these obscure sights is that you don’t really have any clue where they are located, except the directions, and whatever description is on the Roadside website. (They are quite good about steering you away from stuff people have submitted that may be in parts of town you don’t want to be poking around in). So once we found the auto parts lizard, we realized that the “municipal building” it was located on was the St. Petersburg motor pool facility. This is where all the city’s vehicles are serviced, repaired, fueled and dispatched on a daily basis; highway crews, fire equipment, rescue trucks and all the police rolling stock (cars, motorcycles, boats, etc.) The whole place was posted with multiple “Private Property”, “No Trespassing”, “City Vehicles Only” signs. Obviously, noodling around in our little red SUV with Massachusetts plates fit in like a you-know-what at a you-you-what. But we just drove around, took a couple pictures without getting out of the car (better to make a fast escape), and left. Nobody even looked twice…
· Next, we visited the Panama Canal Museum in Seminole. The Smithsonian doesn’t need to worry… The PCM is located in a couple of rooms in a multi-story office building (along with lawyers, podiatrists, tax gurus and various other enterprises), and has a very extensive collections of photos depicting the construction of the canal, and a number of display cases with artifacts from the early 1900’s event. Probably not as bad as I make it sound, but the navigator could have used a DVD to gain a better understanding of the whole story, and we both wonder…why in Seminole, FL?
· Then, on to the Florida Botanical Gardens in Largo. Although part of the facility was closed (a reproduction early Florida village, sort of Sturbridge with humidity and ‘gators), the gardens were quite attractive and well laid out. We always envision our meager efforts at home to somehow, in some small way, replicate these vast, exotic spaces, grown and maintained by professional staff. They don’t.
· Last up was Tarpon Springs, which turned out to be so different than what we thought, it was funny. First, no slight intended, it is obviously a largely Greek community, perhaps explained by the predominance of focus on sponge diving (very Mediterranean) and sale of said sponges. And, boy, were there places selling sponges! I guess the cool thing to do is to go out on the boats with the divers and they dive down and return with sponges for you, personally. The main thoroughfare through town reminded us of trying to drive a car down the mid-way at Eastern States Exposition on a weekend. There are so many shops, selling so much sponge-related merchandise, not to mention all the other dealers of nautical flotsam, and so many tourists; you are barely able to walk along the sidewalk. All in all, a real tourist magnet…but not our cup of tea!! Besides, WHAT DO YOU DO WITH ALL THOSE SPONGES?
Day 15, Tuesday, March 13: Spring Hill, FL to Lakeland, FL
We must be getting away from the coast; there were actually hills and trees on our drive today, deep into orange country. However, because Florida is so ocean-centric, the attractions and sights thin out as you travel inland. But there is a lot of history to central Florida, most of which was settled by farmers and crop growers, and there remains an abundance of horse, cow and crop activity. But before completely abandoning the Gulf coast for the interior, we did check out a couple of weird sights:
· Two (not one, but two!) dinosaurs in Spring Hill. One (with a rather strange physique), in front of a tire shop and another that actually serves as a service station building, and was an even more questionable approximation of the stereotypical dinosaur shape. (actually, the second was a former Sinclair station, thereby explaining the dino...)
· Next up was a…you guessed it, a MUFFLER MAN; this one with a wrench in Dade City.
· Also in Dade City, on the very attractive campus of St. Leo University (in and of itself, a very interesting school; check it out online…), we stopped to see their recently acquired statue commemorating American servicemen/women, and the American ideal of Liberty. It is essentially one member of each of the five armed forces holding up the Statue Of Liberty. Though subject to some minor criticism for its somewhat off-beat rendering, the statue was well presented and did convey a certain patriotic message.
· Perhaps the most interesting stop was at the Pioneer Florida Museum and Village, in Dade City. Again, for New Englanders, it was sort of a small scale Sturbridge Village, with perhaps ten or twelve structures, most relocated from their original sites. Displays and very well furnished buildings gave a real feel for mid- 19th century / early 20th century central Florida. (However, after a while, one old John Deere tractor begins to look like the next old John Deere tractor said the Navigator who really liked the complete collection of ‘First Ladies of Florida’ dolls dressed in period costumes and hairdos…the Driver wasn’t so impressed).
· On the more whimsical note, we also checked out:
o A private home with the entire front yard taken up with a very bizarre cast concrete grotto. Words can’t describe. Nor can pictures…
o One of three Citrus Center monuments in the area. Seems that during the birth and growth of the Dade City / Lakeland area as the orange growing capital of Florida (and the U.S.), numerous and sundry citrus barons and/or local politian’s took upon themselves to somewhat unilaterally decide that where they, and their businesses, were located was the center of the citrus universe…hence multiple monuments.
· Final thought for the day…
o Every year, in some elegant, exotic, obscure location, six men meet around a large, hand-crafted mahogany and inlaid ebony wood conference table. Each possess an extremely expensive carbon graphite brief case, wherein resides huge sums of large denomination currency. All the money is piled upon the table, and a randomly selected staff member from the venue where the meeting is held divides all the money into six equal amounts, each totaling many billions of dollars, and distributes the shares. The six men then leave, and return to their individual businesses: Lowes, Home Depot, CVS, Walgreen’s, McDonald’s and Burger King. THESE ARE THE SIX PEOPLE WHO HAVE CONSPIRED TO CONTROL OUR WEALTH! How often do you see a McDonald’s, without a nearby Burger King? A Home Depot, more often than not with a Lowes across the street? Walgreen’s on one corner, CVS on the other? They’re all in cahoots!
o Weather same; 60’s at night, mid-to-high 80’s during the day, mostly sunny
Day 16, Wednesday, March 14: Lakeland, FL to Fort Pierce, FL
First goal of the day was to find the famous Publix birthday cake water tower. (FYI, Publix is to the southeast as Stop & Shop is to southern New England; the dominant grocery chain.) The water tower is located at their distribution headquarters in Lakeland. The distribution center, by the way, is an attraction itself, I would imagine, with gates marked just like grocery aisles for incoming and I assume outgoing shipments (dairy, produce, canned goods, frozen foods, etc.) Across the street is a block long Publix bakery.
· Next stop, after a brief drive through grove country (oranges as far as the eye can see), was the Bok Tower and Gardens. For something we found almost out of desperation (there’s not much to see in central Florida, except oranges and cows), the Tower, adjacent home and gardens took a couple of hours to tour. Highlights included both the carillon tower (over 200 feet tall), and the surrounding gardens, all built and developed in the 1920’s by one Mr. Edward Bok, the head of Bethlehem Steel’s South American operations at that time. We got a lot of new garden ideas that we would like to incorporate at home, but it would require importing winter-hardy palm trees, annexing another 30 acres of land, and hiring a couple of dozen staff members to manage the whole thing. Or maybe we’ll just stick with a car full of Home Depot annuals…
Also, the Foundation that eventually came to own the Tower and Gardens purchased an adjacent Spanish style 20 room country home, built by C. Austin Buck, an early 20th century industrialist, and preserved it with period furnishings and décor. Very impressive.
· Thoughts for the day:
o You know you’ve been on the road too long when,
A) You get into a discussion with a “local” who tries to convince you that the town you passed through between Lakeland and Fort Pierce, namely Lake Wales, is on the gulf coast (it ain’t), and,
B) You are more familiar with the amenities offered by a particular hotel chain, than the staff is…
o Weather: Still sunny, 60's at night, 80's during the day...
Day 17, Thursday, March 15: Fort Pierce, FL to Delray Beach, FL
· Not much today; just a short drive to Delray, starting with heavy, intermittent rain north of West Palm Beach, then full sun and warm in Delray. Go figure… Most of our Roadside attractions are best described by some reasonable amount of text and one, or at most two, complimentary photos. However, somewhere in the Fort Pierce /Port St. Lucie area, we discovered a new roadside attraction on our own. And contrary to the previous statement, one picture tells the whole story…(note sign...I pictured it as being very different...)
Day 17, 18, Friday and Saturday March 16, 17: Delray Beach, FL
· Ah, the good life! Just hanging around, visiting relatives, long am walks around the community, afternoons at the pool, evening dinner at home or with friends. Nice to catch up on all the news, and just relax for a few days.
o Weather still excellent; mid 60’s at night, mid 80’s and sun during the day. And no humidity yet…
Day 19, Sunday, March 18: Delray Beach, FL to Gainesville, FL
· Loong day on the Florida’s Turnpike, with one winery stop (we’re only up to 16 bottles, so we’ve got to get shopping!) to break the monotony. Central Florida (citrus groves and Disney) is sooo different than south Florida. Lots of nothing…
o Weather…same (this is getting pretty repetitive…)
Day 20, Monday, March 19: Gainesville, FL to Macon, GA
· Hills! Pecan trees! Peanut vendors! It must be Georgia! As we’ve always noted in the past, when we’ve been in this area, the change from the south and central Florida tropical geography / topography / climate to north Florida / Georgia is dramatic. Although the surroundings looks less tropical, there being fewer palm trees, and more hardwoods (and pecan groves), I would imagine the heat and humidity of south-central Georgia is tropic-like in mid-summer!
· A couple of other thoughts…
o Can’t figure out the appeal of boiled peanuts, except that the enjoyment of said item would seem to be inversely proportionate to ones dental capabilities, and…
o Just like Iowa, Georgia’s got pivots! Peanut pivots! (Remember, loyal readers, that pivots are the long irrigation contraptions used predominantly across the corn belt)
· Several interesting sights today, such as the largest peanut monument, in Ashburn, GA, and…
· An old Titan missile in Cordele, GA, at the sight of the 1st Confederate Air Force Launch Pad #1. (Like muffler men, old missiles are a Roadside Attraction category in and of themselves. At the end of the Cold War, many defunct missiles were simply given away to civic organizations and service clubs, to be utilized in just about any appropriate (and sometimes inappropriate) manner.)
Day 21, Tuesday, March 20: Macon, GA to Spartanburg, SC
- There is no direct interstate route from Macon to Athens, Georgia. This presents both a debit, it that the drive is longer, and you’re always contending with both local and a lot of 18 wheel truck traffic. But the upside is that you see a lot more of the local countryside. Even though we’ve had an extremely mild winter in New England, it’s always fun to drive through rural Georgia in March, with all the blossoming cherry, wisteria and crepe myrtle. Today’s top sights were:
- A very large (150 feet by 200 feet), very old (approximately 2000 years) eagle shaped stone mound in Eatonton, GA. This mound, of immense archeological significance (mostly lost on us) is one of only two such mounds built by Native Americans still surviving in the US. There’s a 40’ stone tower for both viewing and working off your breakfast.
- A replica of Stonehenge at a defunct housing development in Athens, GA. Like the original on Salisbury Plain, nobody seems to why the one in Georgia is there, or exactly who built it. Probably not Druids…
- A school bus shelter, also in Athens, designed and built to look like a….what else, a school bus (or at least part of one…)
- Back during the War Between the States, a clever group of non-combat confederate loyalists in Athens decided that double barreled cannon, essentially two barrels, loaded with the cannon balls chained together, and fired simultaneously, would act as a scythe-like weapon to annihilate huge numbers of enemy with a simple firing. Unfortunately, it never worked. After building the only known such weapon in the world, the developers were never able to precisely coordinate the firing of the two barrels, so one ball got ahead of the other, snapped the chain, and both balls went way off course. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
- A huge dragonfly scrap metal sculpture in front of an Athens Child and Family Services Office. Interesting, but you’ve got to wonder about the choice of setting…
- In the muffler-man genre, a vacuum cleaner man in Anderson, South Carolina
- And the best for last. As frequently happens, after a day of the absurd, you hit upon a really good attraction, in a unique location. At a very nice, riverside park in Greenville, South Carolina, there is a monument in the form of an F-86 Sabre Jet, mounted so as to appear in-flight, to commemorate Greenville high school graduate Major Rudulf Anderson, Jr. Major Anderson was a U-2 pilot (but a U-2 could not be utilized because of its continued use in covert service) who was shot down over Cuba at the onset of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Major Anderson was the only fatality, from any nation, of this historic event.
- Weather…you guessed it; high 60’s at night, mid 80’s daytime, no rain, mostly sunny.
Day 22, Wednesday, March 21: Spartanburg, SC to Hickory, NC
Day 23, Thursday, March 22: Spartanburg, SC to Kingsport, TN
- NO attractions today, other than the mountain scenery. Though the hills and curves and drop-off pale in comparison to the roads in Colorado and Utah, the Navigator wasn’t too impressed. Probably because most of the time, the drop-offs and deep mountain gorges were on her side, about 4 feet away…
- Thoughts for the day:
- We started out with a drive to the top of Blowing Rock (out-off-season mini-Vail/Aspen). We couldn’t take in the views, though, because the fog was too thick. (Or the clouds were too low…) It reminded us of our ill-fated 2010 drive to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, which essentially ceased to exist while we were there.
- Went through Boone, North Carolina, home of Appalachian State University; what a booming little burg! No empty store fronts there! Town (city?) seems to be dominated by the university, café’s, small specialty shops, and overrun by 20-somethings with backpacks, bicycles and smartphones. Sort of a Northampton on steroids…
- During the drive, crossing the Appalachian Mountains, at this time of year, you really get a sad exhibition of the devastation caused by the kudzu vines. From a distance, parts of the mountain appear to be bare rock, but as you get nearer, you realize it is dormant, gray/brown kudzu covering everything; trees (which it kills), power poles, power lines, everything…for more info, check out this website:
- Throughout the southeast, and it seems especially in Georgia, and the Carolinas, there seems to be an inordinate number of motorbikes. Not your regular Harleys, or the typical rice burners we see in New England, but rather these skinny-tired things that look like a Schwinn with a model airplane engine. And they seem to go just a little bit slower than the average person can stroll, and are used not only in the city, but out in rural areas, and even on some four lane highways! You could get the same effect walking along blowing into a kazoo…
- Weather: little cooler, 70’s, low 80’s, some showers…
Day 24, Friday, March 23: Kingsport, TN to Beaver, WV
We keep making changes to our itinerary, which is, to us, one of the core principles of traveling the way we do: have a plan, but don’t worry if you don’t stick to it. But because of this, some days have a lot of interesting sights and attractions, while others are mostly just coverin’ miles. Yesterday was the later; though I did forget to mention one major “event” in this blog. Today was the former; lots of driving through the mountains of Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia, and several off-beat stops.
- First, from yesterday, somewhere along the way between Hickory, North Carolina and Kingsport, Tennessee, there being no Interstate or major highway, we got on a nice country back road and were enjoying the scenery when we noted a sign that said “Road Closed – 16 miles. Local Traffic Only”. Like many road signs (see my Thoughts for the Day, below), the wording left us puzzled. No mention of a detour being offered, and are the people in this part of the country so accustomed to poor condition byways that they drive on roads that are closed? And what about all the traffic we were meeting; cars, trucks, 18 wheelers; they had to be coming from somewhere. But the signs continued with the same warnings, at about 5 mile increments, until at last we got to the “1000 feet Ahead”, “500 feet Ahead”, and simply “Ahead”. Then lo and behold, what do you know, the road was closed; well, sort of. The road we were on ended at a large bridge replacement construction site, but an approximately ¼ mile detour (add that word to the Tennessee Highway Department lexicon) simply took us around the work site, and back on the original route.
Today’s sights / stops included:
- In Kingsport, a version of the famous muffler man, this time holding a burger
- Also in Kingsport, a giant skinny Indian (probably a former muffler man) in front of a barbeque restaurant. (why? Don’t ask…)
- In Blountville, Tennessee, we checked out a house with aliens and a spaceship in the front yard. The dramatic effect is somewhat spoiled by the fact that like seemingly most rural Americans, everything is in the front yard.
- In Bluefield, West Virginia, a school recognized by Ripley’s Believe It Or Not as having the most multi-level entrances. Actually, the whole city of Bluefield reminded us of Norwich; everything on the sides of hills, except the hills are taller and steeper. The whole city has a sort of run down (Norwich?) look. It appears as though at the height of the textile era in the 50’s and 60’s, the place was booming, though. Sadly, there is even a huge, 5-level, city-block sized parking garage, now just a rusting hulk.
- A long drive along a very narrow, very twisting mountain road, traversed by various locals and Big trucks caring Big things moving at high speeds, to the town of Odd, West Virginia. Nuf said. (Though we did also see signs for Bland, West Virginia…) And the Driver wasn’t too bothered by the roads (sort of like driving on the back roads of eastern Connecticut, but with more elevation changes), but Navigator seemed a little tense…again…
- Among the not so strange was a very nice little vineyard / winery in Blountville (more bottles of wine…), and a stop at Bristol Motor Speedway, in (where else), Bristol, Tennessee, and, of course, some more shopping…
Thoughts for the day:
- We’re seeing lots more cows (dairy) and green grass (sort like Vermont…)and plenty of “innovative” residential architecture.
Favorite ambiguous road signs:
- Above discussed “Road Closed”
- “Speed Limit Enforced By Aircraft” Don’t they mean monitored? Or does the highway patrol now utilize air-to-surface missiles as part of their enforcement tactics?
- “Beware Of Fallen Rock” and “Beware of Falling Rock” The first I can practice by being vigilant; the second, I don’t really know what I should do, except be ready to take quick evasive action…
- Weather: cloudy, some heavy showers (in the hills), cooler (hi 60's, mid 70's)
Day 25, Saturday, March 24: Beaver, WV to (back to) Fredericksburg, VA
- One word pretty much sums up the day…rain. Just about steady all day, varying from light showers to heavy downpours. Not too bad, considering other than the first day’s rain/snow, we’ve had very good weather on the whole trip.
- So we’ve made the loop back to Fredericksburg, Virginia, to the same hotel we stayed at back on Friday, March 2. Not too many great sights today; a King Kong statue on someone’s front yard in Covington, West Virginia was the high point. (Covington's economy is dominated by MeadWestvaco, which has been operating in the city since 1890. The facility employs about 1300 workers, mostly from Covington and Alleghany County. Its production includes bleached paper and paperboard for packaging, and is the second largest on the East Coast. The whole area smells like Inland Road (some people will get this, some won’t…)
- Lots of driving up and down across the Blue Ridge (Navigator likes the wide shoulders and robust guardrails), followed by a drive through central Virginia horse country later in the day. The cost for white fence paint alone must be astronomical
Day 25, 26, 27, 28, 29: Saturday, March 24 through Wednesday, March 28: Fredericksburg, VA to Mashpee, MA via Atlantic City NJ, and Hartford, CT
- Yep, another stop at the Tropicana. It's a sad commentary on the state of the New Jersey gambling industry health when we, the ultimate low-rollers, get a comp night at a casino hotel, plus a reduced rate for the next night. So, having a dollar or two left, we spent a couple more days playing and hanging out, then hit the road home.
- Stopped in Hartford to visit relatives (no dentist this trip), then home...
- 29 days, 5404 miles; looking forward into settling into another Cape Cod spring / summer / fall, then, who knows...
Oh, I just love reading about your travels! I live in Port St. Lucie, FL, and was the chairman of the public art advisory committee that no longer exists because they don't give a rip about real art here - but you do! There are probably a few places you could revisit here and find things you hadn't seen before. It's late, but I'd love to chat soon. Contact me if you want.
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