Florida, Alabama, Louisiana

We left Florida April 19th on our latest trip, this one going out west for the summer/early fall. This is going to be 6-7 months of adventure! Here's our journey so far.

We are currently west of Fort Worth, Texas for 4 nights to see the Zoo, the Botanical Gardens and, most of all.....to eat Texas BBQ !!

From the top going clock-wise, we have a half-eaten pork rib, in the upper right - pickled red onions and below that is the apple coleslaw, then... three more ribs, sausage, brisket with BBQ sauce, then pickled cucumbers and red potato salad. 
Oh, and there's an interested party looking in from the left.

...not sure what Katie is thinking...you can make up your own caption for her, but the food is absolutely delicious! And we still have Friday and Saturday to try two more BBQ places. And we're hiding the weight scale for a few days.

We stayed at Ocala for one night, then, on the way to Tallahassee the next night, we stopped at the Forest Capital Museum State Park for a visit to an original Florida Cracker House. Those old settlers sure had to work from sunup to sundown. Imagine building all these building from scratch? Nice stop.

Walk Around the Homestead | Florida State Parks

This is the museum which has many exhibits all about the forest/lumber industry back in the day. VERY interesting.

Excellent diorama depicting the early turpentine business.

Model scale of the cracker house and all its outlying buildings, all of which had a specific purpose, like chicken coop, outhouse, wood, etc. All had to be built by hand.

Pine needle walkway leading to the main house where the family lived. The state moved this house from its original location to here for the museum.

After taking two days to get used to travelling again in Tallahassee, we headed down south to see the Possum Monument at Wausau, Florida but, unfortunately, there was a lot of construction so we couldn't even stop. But, for those who are saying, "What the heck is a Possum Monument"? Here's a link and a couple of photos.

A tribute to the furry local heroes who helped get residents through many tough times.

Possum Monument – Wausau, Florida - Atlas Obscura

Then, down to the Gulf to see the Choctaw Beach hopefully to put our feet in the water. 

We forgot to take any photos but here, on the left, is where we parked the coach so we could see the water. It was a nice place to take a break. I couldn't resist so I took off my shoes and waded into the water up to my shins. Then I went over to the dock to help Kim and Katie off the beach and sliced open my big toe on the coral. Ouch. It's taken all this time to heal. 

Alabama. We love this RV spot because they rent us a hot tub that we can sit in at 103 degrees whenever we want! We just hung around, did not see anything. Worked on inside coach projects...getting it ready for our trip. Relaxing.

See the hot tub to the right of the passenger door? We were in it constantly.

This gentle lake is our "front yard" view.

Last entry: We've stayed at Cajun Palms many, many times over the years. As a matter of fact, this is where we wintered over our first two years of travel. This time, we decided to book a covered site. Good thing we did, because a big ol' storm came through, lightning, thunder and everything. But we were protected. 

All covered up

We had the place to ourselves for the first 4 days.

Kim made some fabulous deviled eggs that disappeared instantly!

We'll post some more detailed visits to Poverty Point, a 10,000-year-old Indian settlement in Louisiana and other spots but, for now, this will keep you informed as to our progress. 

We're sure thankful that you all are following us.

Kim/Steve/Katie

Don Garlits Dragster Museum

 Well, this one might not be for everyone but, when you are exploring, it's fun to see sights that are out of your interest zone. This one could definitely qualify for some of you.

This is the Don Garlits Dragster Museum outside of Ocala, Florida, where he is from.

This place is HUGE !! Soooo many dragsters, funny cars, photos, trophies...and on and on...

There is even a place for just engines !

There is also another building with just the cars that he's restored over the years when he stopped racing....dozens.

The first Funny Car

LOVE the blue

For the red car above...

He called his dragsters the Swamp Rat, with many "editions". He's had 38 of them !. Here's a link to all of them....

https://garlits.com/swamp-rat-gallery/

If you notice, all the engines were in front of the driver but, Don had a terrible accident where the front of the dragster broke, injured him and ended him in the hospital for months. 

Notice the engine part continuing down the strip while the back, engine part, is looking straight down at the road! That's Don in there.

Here's the video of the dragster coming apart:

https://youtu.be/J1a8ZQxq8EE?t=60

While in the hospital, Don came up with an idea to put the engine BEHIND the driver. This was revolutionary. Here's the result:

Everyone soon copied.

The tires on these dragsters are enormous ....check this out...

...but who's the geez in the front???

This was a very nice stop. We spent only one night in Ocala but it was worth it.

...on to our next top !...

steve/kim/katie

The Da Vinci Machines Exhibition

This Leonardo da Vinci exhibition showing in Bradenton, Florida, is one of only three in the world. One is in Australia, one is in Florence, Italy and one is the one we saw.

Over 60 machines, meticulously hand-crafted by Florentine artisans, bring Da Vinci’s amazing visions to life and provide fascinating insight into many of the machines of our current, modern world: the tank, the helicopter, the hang glider, the bicycle, the modern warship. All sprang from the mind of Leonardo da Vinci.

Here's the write up from the website:

Experience Da Vinci’s genius brought to life as you witness actual working models and machines carefully reconstructed from Da Vinci’s own drawings, notes and designs. See them move. Touch and control them. And be awed by the ceaseless magnitude of intellect and invention way ahead of its time. 



http://www.bradentongulfislands.com/davinci/

As we entered the auditorium, we walked through a gallery of some of his portraits. Of course, he is, and was, known as a world famous painter. Ever heard of the Mona Lisa? or the Last Supper?

That light is not part of the painting, it's coming from the overhead light.

Then, as you enter the main auditorium room, we were awestruck at the numerous displays throughout the room, the walls, the upper walls and the ceiling.

Notice the extra large posters of his paintings above the exhibits?

I loved the way they took his drawings, enlarged them and put them on the wall. Nicely done.

This enlargement is right next to the small scale models and drawing which makes for a visual buffet. 

The room was set up in categories, like "war" and "mechanical", and "flight". Then the way the exhibits were set up with one of da Vinci's drawing and a descriptive write-up. Next to it was the model that the artisans from Florence constructed. I was told that they even went to the same forest that da Vinci used to use the same wood. They had one continuous movie playing about his life (about 45 minutes long and very interesting) and the other was a man describing many of the exhibits on display, which helped us understand them better.

So...let me place a number of these exhibits that you can read and browse through so you can experience it like we did (well, sort of).

A life preserver !

The forerunner to modern day scuba gear.

Water skis

There was a very large over-sized book in the gift shop of all his painting, drawings, sketches, etc. Here is a couple of pages showing his study on cloth and folds for one of his painting. Amazing work.

I bet you didn't know that Kim was the inspiration for the Mona Lisa !

We spent about 4 hours in the exhibit hall and came away with a greater appreciation for Leonardo da Vinci, I would encourage you to look up his biography sometime.

All the exhibits photos we took are located here as well:
https://picasaweb.google.com/100376105788369441882/LeonardoDaVinci?authuser=0&feat=directlink


Hope you enjoyed this one !

Kim and Steve