April 2019 – Adventures of Roy and Laurie

April 29, 2019April 29, 2019

A Ghost Tour Of Savannah, Georgia….In A Hearse!

As we were wondering what to do in Savannah to get a feel for the community and the area’s history we figured a historical ghost tour might be fun and informative. As it turned out, there were not too many scary ghost stories or too much historical information passed onto us by our tour guided “Peg-Leg Ron”. This non-politically correct name was what he preferred to be called so….

Very interesting being picked up by a hearse in the middle of downtown! The folks in the back had to get out to let us in…not sure why they didn’t just move to the front?

We took an hour long tour of the town with our driver constantly on the speaker telling us a quick story about some local disaster and claiming in each instance “He’s dead!” Peg-Leg Ron had a distinct southern accent that indeed accentuated the word “Dead”. The Six Pence Pub is know for its paranormal activity as described on their own website below.

At this British-style Pub, the “victims” of the paranormal activity most frequently are the pub’s employees. The kitchen staff have experienced all sorts of strange things happening behind the dining room area.
Pans and pots have been known to go flying off the countertops, as though an invisible force has taken a sweeping hand and sent them sailing to the ground. But that’s not all.
In one bizarre paranormal happenstance, a former manager of Six Pence watched an office chair turn in a circle and then slide across the floor untouched. Creepy? We think so, as well.
Employees have also complained about various electrical issues, from the temperature dropping randomly (and the thermostat doing the same!) to light bulbs actually bursting out of their sockets and splintering into a million little shards.
As ghosts are a matter comprised of energy, it only makes sense that a pub with so many spirits might actually pop with all of that spiritual energy so centrally localized.

Notice the slanted window frames. They were built that way to ward off evil spirits.

At one point, he stopped the hearse and pointed out that the rollers on the floor still worked. Worked for what you ask? To help roll the coffins out of the back of the hearse. Pretty creepy actually!

Ron then took us back to “Paranormal Headquarters” to show us some cool stuff. We were actually a bit uncomfortable going into the back door down a deserted back alley to a musty garage but….

Many of the items were a bit corny, to say the least, but these pairs of picture frames actually seemed to have figures that followed you with their eyes as you walked by. Each pair above was actually a single picture, but when you changed your stance and position, the ghoulish figure appeared in the same frame.

We thought that this lamp made out of someones old x-rays was actually pretty cool.

Peg-Leg Ron did have us in perpetual smile mode with his comments and accent.

After our tour and bidding a fond adieux to Ron we decided to walk the historic downtown ourselves for a while:

To get down to the waterline we were willing to risk it!

Which is it? Private, historic or both? They were actually very difficult to navigate…..even for us seasoned hiking veterans.

We decided against a dinner cruise but found the boardwalk along the Savannah River to be very quaint and interesting.

The city had a working trolley system that helped with the ambiance.

We also saw many horse drawn carriages throughout the city. Very pretty indeed.

The city had a very interesting WWII memorial

Saw this in one of the shops downtown. We never realized there was “Nobody” in right field in the famous Abbot and Costello act “Who’s On First?”

To get out of town we needed to scale these very interesting steps. Glad we have been getting in shape a bit.

We saw this sign on the way home to our Bullet. Would have been cool to see one but….no luck this time.

April 22, 2019April 22, 2019

Fort Sumter: The First Battle Of The Civil War

When in Charleston, South Carolina we figured we had to check out the National Park Service destination of Fort Sumter. This is the famous fort where the first shots were fired of the American Civil War. It was a 30 minute ferry ride out to the fort that sits on a small island in the bay.

The fort is on its own island, made to endure the sea as well battles.

Here are a few shots from inside the fort. It felt very strange walking on the grounds of the fort where folks played an integral part in our Civil war.

Check out the sea shells in the mortar mixture used to build the fort.
Talk about sourcing your projects locally.

An actual photo of the action during the battle
An artist’s rendition of the battle.
Very similar indeed

This 15 inch cannon has a tube weighing over 50,000 pounds!

Imagine staring down the barrel of this cannon?

One of the original cannons at the fort.
Check out the rails the cannon pivoted on.

These huge ammunition round never exploded, but it did penetrate the wall.
Another unexploded round.

A photo of “Honest Abe”. He looks a bit younger than after the war came to an end.

April 20, 2019April 20, 2019

A Day At The Circus….Ringling Brothers Circus Museum.

The Ringling Brother’s Circus Museum is located near Tampa, Florida and is, in our opinion, a hidden gem of a place. We wondered how interesting a museum regarding the circus could be with no animals or big top etc. but….

There were actually two museums here. The “old one” and the “new one”. The new museum was focused around a scale model of a working circus after it came to town by rail. It took us the better part of an hour to travel around it and read all the interesting tidbits regarding the daily lives of the circus performers. The model is still a work in progress as we saw the guy in charge of the model doing some work while we were touring. The detail on every part of the model is amazing. A video we watched stated that even all the parts of the model that no one will see are done to amazing detail. When asked why he did that, his response was “I would know it wasn’t right”. The second, or “old” museum had many old circus artifacts.

The scale model of a working circus was way too large to capture in one photo.

How many men does it take to move a tent pole!

The amount of labor used to set up and take down daily is impressive.

Horses were used to help offload the equipment
Even the detail of daily life in the towns as the circus passed through is amazing

As bicycle enthusiasts we have no inclination to attempt this!

Practice, and more practice before the evening performance.

In addition to the food tent for the Carnies the animals were key to the success of the circus so they had their own food prep tent. Apparently they were fed very well.

The top brass for the circus traveled in style!

Any takers for a recently posted job opening?

Some of the early attractions included…
The Wolf Boy
Tom Thumb: Age 7 he was 25 inches tall. He died at 45 at 33 inches tall.
And, of course, men on stilts!

And the organ still works!

Details all the way down to the bathroom troughs.

Even the model cars were done with amazing precision.

The old placards that were placed all over town ahead of the circus’ arrival. Each year there would be a different theme for the big top.

April 19, 2019April 19, 2019

What Is A Coral Castle You Ask?

We talked to our son Chris about what was interesting to see in Southern Florida as he had lived there for a number of years. He suggested the Coral Castle Museum near Miami. He said it was one of the most interesting places he had ever visited. A guy from Latvia named Ed Leedskalnin came to America around 1920 and purchased one acre of land for $12 and started to build his Coral Castle as a dedication to the woman he loved back in Latvia. One of the amazing things about the Coral Castle is that Ed had no power tools or heavy equipment. He had to move and place all the multi-ton rocks by hand through his knowledge of leverage and mechanics. Ed was a very private man and wanted no one to see what he was up to as he built his castle. He first erected the stone walls to ensure that privacy.

An eerie cardboard cutout of Ed greeted us as we entered the castle.
Ed charged folks a nickel to tour the place back in the day but….

These coral walls were about 7 feet high so no one could spy on his progress over the years.

It is only a guess, but folks figure the blocks of stone to form the walls of the castle were “harvested” right next to the castle walls leaving these empty pits in a few places.

Most of the pieces of furniture were carved from the coral rock at Florida City about 10 miles from the castle and moved there during the dead of night over the course of a few years as no one has ever come forward to claim they ever saw Ed doing the moving.

The biggest mystery of all is how Ed moved and placed these stones weighing many tons each without the help of power equipment. Most claim that Ed was a book learned man with much knowledge of physics and mechanics.

One really cool stone (9 tons) made a rotating door that actually balanced on its center of mass and rotated freely for years. A number of years after Ed’s death the door stopped rotating as part of the rotating hinge disintegrated. The museum has hired a number of folks with engineering backgrounds to fix it but to no avail.

A table made of stone in the shape of Latvia.
Another table of stone in the shape of Florida.

Laurie is a bit taller than Ed but seems comfortable enough.
Another one of Ed’s favorite spots to sit and read a book.

No one knows for sure why Ed drilled this smooth hole into a piece of coral but I believe you can make out a scary face on the rock behind it, look closely inside the hole and your can see the hollowed out eyes and mouth. Pretty cool.

Through a hole drilled in the castle wall you can view another hole in a monolithic rock outside and view Polaris, the North Star.

Ed appears to have had a great knowledge of the stars, solar system and the heavens. Many of his decorative additions to the castle gave homage to show that.

Here he is portraying Venus and Saturn on top of his castle walls.

Ed also constructed a sun dial from the coral rock and it was very accurate here as we were there a bit before 4pm. The guide noted that Ed did not build in daylight savings time so it looked like we were there right before 3pm.

He even built a walk-down well to retrieve water.

Ed’s swinging chair does not look too comfortable but….
His swinging bed looks even less comfortable.

A wheel barrow Ed used
Some other “implements of construction”

A wonderful time was had by both of us. Definitely check out the Coral Castle if you are ever in the Miami area.

April 14, 2019April 14, 2019

Key West…No More Words Necessary.

A few days after our bicycle trip to Key West we decided to scooter our way up there (or is it down there?) and check out some tourist destinations. We toured the “Little White House” first. This was the vacation home for President Harry Truman. Unfortunately they did not allow photography of any kind in the house itself. We recommend visiting this blog:
http://www.trumanlittlewhitehouse.com/guide/
President Truman’s plaque on his desk was inscribed with “The Buck Stops Here”. Therefore, we did learn that the phrase he is given credit for popularizing, “The Buck Stops Here” does not mean what most think. Google definition: “Passing the buck” originated from a ritual practiced during card games. Card players used to place a marker, called a “buck,” in front of the person who was the dealer. That marker was passed to the next player along with the responsibility of dealing. Truman was an avid card player and had the most wonderful card table in the living room of the Little White House.

The iconic “Mile 0” sign for East Coast Route 1 which travels all the way up to Maine!

We certainly saw some strange things here in Key West!

Pepe’s famous seafood for lunch. The pink gulf shrimp were out of this world.

The sign above our booth at Pepe’s. I think we were in compliance.

If Key West was the birthplace of Pan Am……where did it die?

The Kapok trees around here are fascinating.

After lunch we chose to visit the Hemingway House and museum. He lived here for a number of years back in the 40s and 50s and our guide had many interesting stories to share:

A picture of Papa himself
Hemingway coat of arms

The actual typewriter that Hemingway used to compose his masterpieces.

The Hemingway home houses up to 40 cats at a time. All are supposedly descendants of the same cat he owned while living in Key West. They also have 6 digits on each foot. This is called “polydactyl”.

As there were no king sized beds in the Keys Hemingway strapped together two twin beds and went in search of the perfect head board for his new bed. He found it in a salvage shop. It was the gate to an old house.

The famous key lime pie. We purchased it at the original Key Lime Bakery.

The pool installed at great cost by his wife while he was in Cuba with another woman
Upon returning and finding the pool, Hemingway threw a penny on the drying cement and claimed “she has taken me for my last penny!”

On the way out of town on our scooter this sign caught our attention.

This is what construction looks like in the land of hurricanes.

Only in the Keys! We wondered if the turtles have A Single Payer System like most of the world or a system like ours in the United States?

April 8, 2019April 8, 2019

A Bicycle Ride To Key West And Back

What would a good trip to the Florida Keys be without getting out on our trusty tandem for a nice bike ride? We will not answer that question as we did indeed leave our “home” in Marathon, FL for a nice 65 mile ride up a beautiful bike path to Key West. The entire length of the Keys has a nice bike path to ride on so no dealing with traffic except for the occasional bridge as well as the famous 7 mile bridge.

We even attached our trailer named “Bob” to carry our luggage for our overnight getaway. We left at 11am so the sun was not quite at its highest point but boy did it get a bit warm out there on the road.

A view from the stoker’s seat on the back of the tandem. We had a nice shoulder to ride on when on the 7 mile bridge. The water was crystal clear and the sky a shameless blue.

As we were only around 90 miles from Cuba, why not have a Cuban sandwich for lunch? Pulled pork, ham, pickles, mustard, mayo and cheese. All pressed like a panini. GOOD!

Once we checked into our Marriott hotel we took a free shuttle to downtown. The rooster could not go with us but he was our first glimpse at what would be many “rogue” roosters on the Keys.

As the shuttle was packed I decided to stand and hold onto the hand rails. The sign behind me was quite interesting we thought……”no standing while vehicle in motion!”

Once downtown we wandered around looking for what was interesting. Many shops and of course, the street performers were on the boardwalk doing their stuff. Many were very interesting but we found two we really enjoyed:

Once we made it to downtown we had to check out the shop that claims it created the first ever (and best of course) Key Lime Pie. At $26 per pie it ought to be good.

This guy was pretty amazing. Such strength!
This guy actually swallowed that sword after a lengthy discussion of his craft.

We found some of the coolest trees we have ever seen in Key West. The Kaypok tree here.

On our 65 mile ride back to Marathon the next day we stopped for lunch at a roadside stand and found these amusing objects.

When was the last time, if ever, you have seen one of these machines?

Our bike trip was a success in many ways. 1. We found out that we were still in decent cycling shape. 2. The hot and humid weather is not for us and 3. We love riding on bike paths with no traffic to worry about.

April 5, 2019April 5, 2019

A Bit Lost In A Kayak? Mangrove Forests/Swamps Are Tough To Navigate.

What to do in Florida after Spring Training and Parasailing? Well, kayaking of course. We found a local outfitter who would deliver the kayaks to us and pick them up the next day for a nominal fee. They even included the paddles, life jackets and a nice map of the local “trails” we could paddle on.

As we had them for the entire day we took them to Sombrero Beach, nice place on the coast to launch.

They say life jackets can be one size fits all…..Not sure I would agree. Check out the sparkling white sand!

Laurie was quite the adventuresome soul this day. The map did indeed claim we should follow this very narrow path. Our gps on the phone agreed so off we went.

I caught up with my speedy wife at this low lying obstacle. We lay down backwards and snuck under the branches.

Not sure we were all smiles the entire time but it was a really cool place to be. We wondered about the alligators and snakes but…

Cool looking jellyfish eh?
Not sure if it is poisonous but…

Can you find the very large bird in the pic? We did not even know he was there until we literally bumped into him. He did not flinch. Camouflage is one of natures great inventions don’t you think?

Here are some nice pics of our “ordeal”: