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Published: September 8th 2014
Hulk Hogan statue
In Clearwater Beach there is a shop, Hogan’s Beach shop, where they have a statue of Hulk Hogan. From Hulk Hogan to Neil Armstrong
After we left New York we flew to Fort Lauderdale in Florida. There we picked up our rental car and headed out on a week long road trip in the Sunshine State.
When we told a friend that we planned on travelling around in Florida in July he warned us that it might get very warm. So when we got there we expected excruciatingly hot weather. The weather was warm but not ridiculously so. From what we heard it was a lot warmer the week before we arrived so it might be that we were a bit lucky. What we didn’t expect however was how intense thunderstorms can be in this part of the US. One day when we drove along the freeway it started raining. There was thunder and lightning and soon the rain was torrential. We and many others decided to stop on the shoulder of the highway to wait out the rain. It took more than 20 minutes before we dared to drive again.
We hadn’t made any detailed plans for this road trip before heading out on it. We knew where to
Bird
We saw this bird early in the morning in Sarasota pick up the car, Fort Lauderdale, where to leave it in the end of the trip, Orlando, and we also wanted to see the Everglades National Park. With those parameters to steer us we hit the road. It was probably a pretty good idea that we didn’t have more plans than that because the lack of plans took us to places that we probably wouldn’t have seen otherwise. We looked in our guidebook to see what it had to say about the various places we came to and we also used a web site called
Roadside America.
The site Roadside America has listed “oddball places” all over the USA and Canada. There are close to 400 places listed in the state of Florida and we went to a few of them. Not many of these sites would be mentioned in a traditional guidebook, and even fewer would be considered a typical tourist attraction. Most of the places listed on the site are directed either towards children, towards people with special interests or are for other reasons not a place we would go to. But quite a few are of the kind that if we are in the neighbourhood
Bongoland
For a short while in mid 20th century there was a theme park called ongland. Among other attractions they had several concrete models of dinosaurs it is definitely worth stopping by and the occasional site is for us even worth a detour.
It turned out that on this road trip we went to see quite a few places that we found on this site and we had lots of fun doing that. Here follows the places we went to on this trip, many of them we found on Roadside America, that we have decided to include here on the blog.
Hulk Hogan statue: In Clearwater Beach there is a shop called Hogan’s Beach shop. The shop is named after the show wrestler Hulk Hogan and they have a statue of him outside the shop.
Bongoland: In the town Port Orange there is a botanical garden/public park called Dunlawton Sugar Mill Gardens. It is centred around the crumbling remains of an abandoned sugar mill. For a short while in mid 20th century there was a theme park where the botanical garden is today, a theme park that among other attractions had several concrete models of dinosaurs and other extinct giant animals. All that remains of that park today is a handful of these concrete animals.
Celebration
Celebration was founded by the Disney Corporation. They wanted to create the perfect American suburb Celebration: Outside Orlando there is a town called Celebration. Celebration was founded by the Disney Corporation, they wanted to create the perfect American suburb, but does not have any ties to Disney anymore. We actually drove into Celebration without even knowing that we did so. After driving in the town for a minute or so we had a feeling that the place is different from other towns and suburbs we had been to. We had that feeling, that it was different and even a bit strange, already before we realised that we had driven into Celebration. We hope we don’t hurt peoples feeling too much now when we try to explain how we felt when we entered Celebration. It felt like we had been warped into an episode of the Twilight Zone. We could never capture that feeling in our pictures but we have put up two photos from Celebration on the blog anyway.
Ochopee Post office: The smallest post office in the US. When we were leaving the post office a van drove up and emptied the mail box. The van was larger then the post office.
Unconditional Surrender: In Sarasota there is a sculpture
Celebration
When we drove through Celebration it felt like we had been warped into an episode of the Twilight Zone. called Unconditional Surrender. The sculpture is inspired by a photocalled
V-J Day in Times Square. In the photo, and the sculpture, a sailor passionately kisses a nurse. The photo was taken in 1945 in Times Square in New York City when people celebrated that Japan had surrendered and World War II was over.
Alligator dinner: That is
we ate alligator, not the other way around. In Bradenton we found a restaurant, Linger Lodge, where we ate alligator. It was fun to try it but it was not very special. This is a classic, it tasted like chicken.
Lizard sculpture made from car parts: In the city St Petersburg (Florida, not Russia) we stopped in an industrial park to have a look at a sculpture sitting on top of a garage hosting the St Petersburg Fleet Management facility. The following text is taken directly from
their homepage “
The "Security Lizard," sits atop the Fleet Management building. This public arts sculpture, created by Paul Eppling, is created from car bumpers, glass, street lights, traffic signals, license plates and other auto parts. The lizard has a firefly in its mouth (a street light), which provides security lighting for the facility. “
Ochopee Post office
The smallest post office in the US Biff Burger: Another place in St Petersburg we stopped at was a restaurant called Biff Burger, Biff standing for Best in Fast Food. In the 50-ies and 60-ies there were more than 800 restaurants operating under the name Biff Burgers throughout the Southeast of the USA. In the 70-ies the company collapsed and today there is only one restaurant left using that name, the one in St Petersburg. Today Biff Burger is a popular hangout for people who fancy the music and fashion of the 50-ies and 60-ies. We liked the restaurant mainly for the history around it. The burgers, however, tasted like any other burger really.
Church looking like a chicken: In Madeira Beach there is a church that from a certain angle looks like a chicken. This comment on FaceBook wonderfully describes this photo. “it is on the borderline of cute and creepy”
Grave in the middle of a road: In New Smyrna Beach there is an oddly placed grave. It is in the middle of a road. The grave is of a boy who died in a hunting accident and he is buried at the spot where he died.
Panther Crossing
Unfortunately we didn't see any pathers When they many years later made plans for making a road it turned out to be difficult to gain permission to exhume the body and move the grave. So instead they let the grave remain where it was and they let the road go on either side of it thus making the grave sit on an island in the middle of the road.
Artist couple’s house: In Safety Harbour there is a house that looks like it came straight out of a fairy tale or possibly a bad acid trip. The house and the garden is decorated beyond anything we have ever seen before. Among other things they have decorated the house and the garden with more than a hundred painted bowling balls.
Airstream Ranch: In the town Dover there is an installation called Airstream Ranch. It consists of eight Airstream RVs partly buried in the ground. You can see a panorama photo of it at the top of this blog entry. The installation is inspired by a similar work of art in Texas called
Cadillac Ranch.
We did also see some more traditional tourist attractions while in Florida.
Unconditional Surrender
In Sarasota there is a sculpture called Unconditional Surrender inspired by a photo called V-J Day in Times Square John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art: In Sarasota John Ringling, owner of
Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus, and his wife Mable had their home. The home was a large mansion with an accompanying garden. Today the entire estate in open for the public and includes the mansion itself, a museum over circus in general and Barnum and Bailey Circus in particular and an art gallery. We were mostly interested in the circus museum. It is a very good museum and it was both interesting and fascinating to get to know about the history of Barnum and Bailey Circus. What made the biggest impression on us was how large the circus was. The largest of the circus tents, the so called Big Top, could seat as many as 15,000 spectators at the same time. That gives you an idea of the scale of things. They rarely set up more than one show in each town. In a morning the circus arrived on trains and in a few hours the equivalent of a small town was erected in a previously empty field. The show was set up in the afternoon or early evening. In the late evening everything was pulled down again, put on railway cars and in the
Alligator
We ate alligator night they travelled to the next town where they started all over again.
EPCOT Center: EPCOT stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow and is one of the Disney theme parks in Orlando. It is possible that the park when it opened in 1992 was futuristic, exciting and well planned. Today it felt old and outdated and we think that if it hadn’t been for it being part of Disney Corporation, hence receiving a lot of visitors that go to the other parks, EPCOT would have fared a similar fate as the previously mentioned theme park Bongoland. By the way, we would like to issue a warning to any potential visitor to EPCOT Center – avoid the ride MISSION: Space. We were all very sick for a considerable amount of time after trying it.
Everglades National Park: We took a ride in a flat-bottomed boat powered by huge fans. During the ride we saw a lot of grass and a few alligators.
Kennedy Space Center : We spent the better part of a day at the Kennedy Space Center. The visit included among other things
• A bus tour throughout the area
• The
Lizard sculpture
Lizard sculpture made from car parts launch pad from where the space shuttles and the Apollo rockets were launched
•
The Crawler Transporter, a vehicle designed for transporting space shuttles and rockets.
•
The Vehicle Assembly Building , the building where the space shuttles and rockets were assembled and prepared. The Vehicle Assembly Building is the largest one-story building in the world.
• The command centre that was used when the Apollo missions where launched
• A Saturn V rocket, the same kind of rocket that was used in the Apollo missions to the moon. There were a total of 16 manned missions in the Apollo Program, numbered Apollo 2 to Apollo 17. When they aborted the Apollo program 1972 it was done rather abruptly. There were plans for more missions to the moon but they were shelved. The Saturn V rocket that was supposed to carry Apollo 18 to the moon was already finished when the cancellation notice came. That rocket is today the centre piece of an exhibition on Kennedy Space centre.
• Space Shuttle Atlantis
There you have what we saw and did in in Florida. The next blog entry will be from California.
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harry pit
non-member comment
Florida city
I am very exited to know after all this. I also rally want to enjoy Florida trip. As u say about Florida, i think it will memorable.