Tulsa, Oklahoma

While staying in Tulsa we did a little sightseeing. We visited the Phillips Petroleum Company Museum in Tulsa, what a fascinating place!
This truck was produced by the Tulsa Automobile Company, a 1918 Tulsa Four Runabout, specially built for the oilfields; I never knew the company even existed!

Notice the custom racks in the bed for drill bits.
Some displays brought back memories of my youth; I guess this means I’m kind of OLD!

Some beautiful and interesting artwork and old photos as well.
This huge vault contained the thousands of Phillips Petroleum patents!
One of their patented products was Marlex Plastic, which was most famously used for production of the Hula Hoop!
They even had a Hula Hoop there you could “take for a spin”! We didn’t try it!
Here are some of their many products over the years.

Here’s a photo of one of their service stations. I remember when they really were service stations; they pumped your gas, check your oil and battery and washed your windows!
Some of their early delivery vehicles used in their business.

Frank Phillips was very particular when it came to the company image!
This is one of their service stations that is on display at the Woolaroc Museum and Wildlife Preserve.

They had a replica of the living quarters for the oilfield workers; pretty sparse!

woolaroc museum and wildlife preserve

Here’s a couple of Longhorn steers having a little sparring match.
And Ostriches!
Zebras!?! In Oklahoma?
A couple of Water Buffalo cooling off!
They even have a small herd of Bison too.
In front of the museum are several interesting bronze sculptures.
An indian speer fishing.

The front entrance to the museum had these beautiful mosaic tile pictures.

In the main entrance lobby is a grand statue of “Uncle Frank” as he was called by all who knew him. Frank Phillips, founder of the Phillips Petroleum Company and also a great humanitarian to all.
Frank Phillips had a great love and respect for the Native Americans, so there is quite a lot of memorabilia, artwork and photos of them in his extensive collection here.

We particularly liked this painting, it looks almost 3D in person!

There were also many beautiful birds and animals to admire.

This was one HUGE snake!
There were some displays of how it was in the old west of the time, including this beautiful saddle.
There many different variations of spurs too!

A caricature of Uncle Frank; he wasn’t afraid of being poked fun at! He loved the Old West!

Here’s a painting from a photo of Uncle Frank attending the 1930 Cow Thieves and Outlaw Reunion, holding the Chief’s grandson!

A re-creation of Frank’s office.
There is also a very extensive collection of various firearms, quite impressive!

There is als

And of course, vehicles and an airplane!

Beautiful chair, but it doesn’t look too comfy!

Frank and his wife’s living quarters of the day.

On our way out of the parking lot at Woolaroc we noticed these whimsical bird houses lining the back of the lot!

tulsa botanical gardens

The Tulsa Botanical Gardens had some spectacular flowers; we were amazed!

We’ve seen these before, but these were huge! about the size of a dinner plate!

Water lilies

Branson, Missouri

branson Scenic railway train ride

Branson was a bit like Las Vegas mixed with Disneyland! Lots of Casinos, Vegas type shows with “Tribute” shows for various artists and all kinds of kids entertainment: we opted for more scenic fun, like this 40 mile round trip train ride on antique rail cars. This engine is circa mid 1950s.

The car we rode in was one of those domed observation cars. It was from the late 1940s I think!
This was a city campground right near the train station downtown. We stayed further out.
Going across an old wooden trestles; I assumed they keep it maintained!

Some areas were pretty tight! They only blasted out as much as they needed to get through I guess!
There were two tunnels to go through too.
While in the darkness of the tunnel the interior lights came on including these light up handrails on the stairs. Must be the predecessor of fiber optics?!? (sorry for the blurred picture, I took this with my phone)
The second tunnel.

A view of the Branson harbor area of Lake Taneycomo in downtown Branson near the train station.

table rock lakeshore trail

We found this lovely short trail on the shore of Table Rock Lake, as the name implies.
Lots of pretty flowers and greenery all along it.

Interesting root system on this old tree!
And of course my favorite; dead trees!
This one looked to me like a moma and adolescent Iguana together!
Nice wide trail; we wished we’d brought our bikes!
This is the Branson Belle. They offer lunch/dinner cruises and other special occasion cruises.

fantastic caverns in springfield, missouri

We’d seen billboards for this attraction up in Springfield and had enough of Branson craziness so we went and checked it out. It’s a tour that takes you through the cavern with a Jeep pulling a trailer. Jan and I got to ride in the back seat of the Jeep.
Just outside the entrance to the cavern was this wood fired stem generator they used to use to light the Edison light bulbs inside. They now of course have been replaced with electric LED lights throughout run by normal electric service.
Kind of eerie in there but huge! Not cold, but is always around 60 degrees. It felt good on a hot day!
The caverns are left over from an old underground river that carved it out of the surrounding limestone.

Some very interesting formations! We were told they only grow about 1/4″ every 100 years!

As a comparison, here is one of the Edison bulbs they used back then. Not quite as bright as the LEDs for sure!
Another tour group.
The owner of the property discovered the cavern in 1862 but kept it a secret until 1867 to explore it. He waited until after the Civil War in fears it would be used and possibly destroyed by either side. These are the names of the 12 women from the Springfield Athletic club who answered his add for explorers to investigate the caverns! Mind you they only had candles in a crude tin can lantern to see by; VERY dark and unknown territory! Our guide turned off the lights for a minute or so, so we could see how dark it is. You can’t see ANYTHING!

This is the entry/exit of the caverns.
We never knew Missouri had so many caverns!
One of their earlier tour vehicles. I’m pretty sure those white wall tires are not original!

Another older generator.
They eventually started using Jeeps like this one. It looks to be 1950s?
I’m not sure why there are 4 gearshifts. One for the tranny but 3 for the transfer case?
1929 or so Ford pickup truck with an interesting way of running the generator for the lights in the bed!

I REALLY wanted to push that button!
Another Jeep, a bit newer than the green one I think.
Here is a Jeepster pulling an old teardrop camper.

After our underground tour we walked down a short path to the river behind.

The boardwalk ended where the water exits the caverns during the rainy season. They had this cool sitting area complete with outdoor furniture!

 

This is the exit point for the water. By the looks of it, it gets pretty intense at times!

 

 

Arkansas

toad suck FERRY DAMSITE park

Toad Suck Ferry Park is on the banks of the Arkansas River. It was part of the Army Corps of Engineers development of the bridge, dam and locks to regulate the river to prevent flooding. It’s a beautiful park!
There is a lock at the other side of the river to allow these river barges to get through.

Most of the week we had this end of the park pretty much to ourselves!
Our campsite was very nice, although quite a challenge to get into, especially since there was a torrential downpour just as we arrived.

toad suck daze

This is an annual event held here since 1982. It was originally held at Toad Suck Park but was moved in 1990 to Conway and has been held there every year since. It was just our luck it happened to be while we were there!
There were the usual state fair type food vendors, games and activities. This was for the kids; they gave them tools and let them take this SUV apart!
There was this booth that lets the kids build different piping configurations to carry water. Of course since it was hot many got wet!

This awesome truck was just a promo for an auto shop, but it is pretty cool!
The main event of course is the Toad races happening throughout the 3 day fair!
We were there for one of the races with the kids competing. Pretty entertaining to watch!
They line-up, trying to keep them contained until the start of the race.
And they’re off, now trying to keep them headed in the right direction. These are not professional toads, they were just sitting on the bank of the river minding their own business yesterday! They’ll be returned there after the races are through. They probably will never be the same after this brief spot of glory as a racer!

The trophies to be awarded. I’m pretty sure the toads don’t get one though!

Arkansas 7 scenic byway through the ozarks

This was a very beautiful drive through forests of green!

Many colorful flowers too.
Along the way we stopped at The Cliff House for lunch. A very picturesque location! They have an attached Inn to.
The view from their balcony was awesome too!

All along this route were spectacular views!
There was this observation tower, but I can see just fine standing on solid ground!

Louisiana- New Iberia, Avery Island, Jefferson Island and Jeanerette

new iberia

We had a very nice campsite here, lots of trees (but not in the way of getting into our site! Although we planned to spend only 3 days, specifically to see the Tabasco Factory, once we saw all the other things to see and do we extended our stay to 8 days! So happy to have that kind of flexibility.
While out running errands we came across this abandoned Sugar Mill.

This old home was called Shadows on the Teche. Very beautiful grounds with the Bayou Teche running behind it!
Lots of gorgeous old Live Oaks!

Live Oaks with Spanish moss and the Bayou in the background.

The home had these cisterns on all the downspouts to collect the rainwater.
The front entrance, very grand!
I managed to snap this one picture of the inside before our Docent told us no inside pictures were allowed!
Nearby was this tribute to their sugar industry; Sugar Mill Park.
While in New Iberia we also visited the Konriko Rice Mill; the oldest operating rice mill in the country!
They were working on this. Its the auger in the ground that takes the raw rice from the trucks into the mill.
This metal bin goes on top of that auger; this is where the trucks drive through to deliver the raw rice.
A mock-up model of the plant process, very fascinating process!

avery island-the home of tabasco hot sauce company

I’ve always wanted to visit this place! All my life I was under the impression it was actually on an island and that you’d need to take a boat or something to get there. It turns out Avery Island is really just the top of a salt dome! There are 4 of them here in Louisiana!
You actually do cross a small bridge to get onto the “Island”!
The front of the main factory building.
Inside the museum they have many promo artifacts from their past, very cool to see!

This was a one-off surfboard they had made in 2000. Very rare; this is the only one in existence, it never went into production!

A piece of the salt dome from their mine.

This is what it looked like when they were mining. All mining stopped when the Union forces destroyed the mine during the Civil War.
They still use salt today in their aging process. It’s placed like this on top of each barrel full of pepper slurry and aged for at least 3 years before being processed into the final product.
And they make LOTS of it!

This is where they mix the slurry to produce the hot sauce. These machines run 24/7!

Some of the white oak barrels they used. To this day they still use the same type of barrel. When they receive them they have iron barrel straps. Prior to using them they switch them out for stainless steel straps; the iron one wouldn’t hold up against cosmic pepper slurry!
When barrels are no longer useable, they make them into wood chips to sell as smoking chips; I need to get some of these!
For obvious cleanliness concerns the factory tour is through windows, still interesting to see. This one factory produces all the Tabasco products made and shipped all over the world!

This is the daily counter of production. Over 84,000 bottles for that day and it was only about 11:00AM!
This is where they start the pepper plants before they’re put in the field.

This fish sculpture was done for them; it’s titled “TA-BASS-CO”!  Notice the fish is biting a pepper on a fishing hook!

On our way between buildings we saw this sign!

The Jungle Gardens tour is a drive with some places to get out for a better look.

The boathouse where Mr. McIlhenny kept his boat and those of some of his friends.

Huge stand of bamboo to the right!
Very lush here! Things growing everywhere. This moss and ferns growing on the trunk of a live oak tree!

Even this dead tree is still supporting Spanish Moss!
One of the walking parts was this garden complete with a Budda.

Part of this jungle paradise is Bird City as Mr. Ned (E.A. McIlhenny’s nick name used by his friends and employees) started this Egret sanctuary with 8 birds in 1890. The fashion of the time was Egret feathers in the ladies hats so these birds were hunted almost to extinction; this was his reason for starting it. The Egrets migrate across the Gulf of Mexico but return every year; there are now hundreds if not thousands!

And turtles!

jefferson island and the rip van winkle gardens

The grand entrance to the Jefferson Plantation and Rip Van Winkle Gardens.

As we started walking out onto the grounds this Peacock came and led the way; our personal escort!

The mansion! Beautiful full front porch complete with big rocking chairs!
This marks the Lafayette Oak where , in 1923, they discovered  3 pots of gold coins hidden by the pirate Lafayette many years earlier!

We assumed this was one of those pots (minus the treasure of course!)
One of the beautiful fountains on the property.

The marker for the Cleveland Oak, named after President Cleveland who was good friends with both Jefferson and Mr. McIlhenny. There’s another Cleveland oak on Avery Island as well.

One of the resident peacocks. We never knew they could fly!

The view out over the property from the front porch.
At the rear of the house were these giant cisterns to capture the rainwater from the gutters.

There was a cage with doves as well!

A couple of the female peacocks.
One of the interesting things in this area was Lake Peigneur. It was a small freshwater lake only 10 or 15 feet deep, but in 1981 while drilling for oil Texaco accidentally punched one of the salt mine shafts in the salt dome and the entire lake was drained into the mines! There were 50 miners down there at the time but miraculously no one was injured or killed! One funny thing happened during this, the force of the water actually reversed the flow of the river and refilled the lake 10 times bigger. It’s now as deep as 125 feet! Also, when the water finally subsided and equalized, the barges that had been sucked down popped back up to the surface!
In the process of this a house built by Jefferson at the edge of the lake was also sucked in; all that remains today is the fireplace and chimney!

jeanerette museum

We visited the Jeanerette Museum on a recommendation because they had a short film about the history of the on going sugar mill industry here.
They had lots of artifacts on display. These were one of the many wooden molds used to cast gears.

This carved alligator was hand carved from a single piece of wood!
Cast iron kitchen utensils and an old oil stove. A far cry from the Viking we had at our house!
These folks were hunters; this fellow was one of many mounted trophies!
Antique toy tractor.
One room was filled with costumes from their Mardi Gras celebrations.

Out back they had some old sugar harvesting machinery and this fire engine; I’m pretty sure it no longer runs!

Bayou Teche runs behind the building. The docent told us there is an alligator in there but that he never comes up further than that pole in the water. We didn’t test it though!

Some of the more famous prior residents. Who’d have thought, Beyonce!
These folks discovered  sunken steamship SS New York in the Gulf of Mexico after 16 years of searching!
Parts of the find including the ship’s bell.

The Bayou Teche

Some interesting bronze sculptures

When we were leaving the docent told up we HAD to stop at this bakery for their famous fresh French bread. She said if the red light was on that meant they had just put a fresh warm batch out. We did and it was awesome! As you can see, the bakery has been in business since 1884!
On the way home Jan spotted this multi-colored house and had to get a few pictures!

Louisiana- New Orleans

We stayed in a campground just outside of New Orleans, a 15 minute drive more or less depending on their traffic. This was on the floor in the Visitors Center where we started our 3 day Hop On/Hop Off bus Tour. The coordinates Upriver, Down River Riverside and Lakeside refer to their area; up and down river are of course referring to the Mississippi River. Lakeside is the huge Lake Pontchartrain, which is about 630 square miles but only about 12-14 feet deep! Riverside again refers to the Mississippi River.
This map that was in the visitors center shows the New Orleans area as it was first laid out by the French in 1718.
This was St. Louis Cemetery #1 right across the street from the visitors center. We chose not to tour it,  just a couple of shots as our bus pulled out.

 

The pyramid shaped crypt in this photo is reserved for Nicholas Cage. He purchased it as well as some property here when he was making movies here. He fell in love with New Orleans and wants too spend eternity here I guess!
This gorgeous Magnolia was on the tree in the visitors center. My second deck seat was just the right height to get this picture! The Magnolia is the state tree and they’re everywhere in and around New Orleans.
On one of our stops we walked through Louis Armstrong Park. Unfortunately, they were working on his statue and the entry gate, so the pictures here were of many others in the park, including this interesting one of Charles “Buddy” Bolden, a coronet player .
This is the statue of Charles “Buddy” Boden.
The park was originally called Congo Square. Its where the plantation workers would spend their limited time off; usually one or two days a month. During season when there was harvesting they would generally not get any time off!
The tour included a little of the “new” city as well.
The Superdome; you don’t realize how big it is until you see it in person! I couldn’t get it all in one picture even with my wide angle lens!
Parts of our tour of course where on the Mardi Gras parade route; it was pretty evident when you were on it!
Beads hanging from everything; trees, wires house balconies!

Some decorated year round apparently! There’s always a reason to party in NOLA as the locals call it!

Famous Bourbon Street.

The old French Quarter influences even extend into the modern city.

The first day we stopped at Creole House and had these scrumptious Oysters!
There was quite a variety of architecture with both the Spanish and French having been here for eons. Lots of very ornate ironwork touches came from the French influences. These larger estates were in what’s called the Garden District. We saw these on a really fun walking tour of this area.
Beautiful!
And these stately hundreds of years old live oak trees were equally impressive!

This looks like graffiti, right? It’s not. It’s from hurricane Katrina. The police and other rescuers would use these markings to mark which homes had already been checked for people (living and/or deceased) and that the gas and other utilities were turned off. The zero at the bottom is what they wanted to see; that meant no one was there, alive or dead. some people decided to keep the markings as a constant reminder!

Another day for lunch we went to Bubba Gumps. This was the bench and suitcase and box of chocolates used in the movie.
An old picture of the real Forrest with his mom.

mardi gras world- where mardi gras floats come to life!

On the way to see Mardi Gras World we passed this abandoned power plant. It’s been used on several movies (none of which I remember the names of)!
And this interesting art display! He wasn’t the culprit, just painting something nearby!
The entrance

DISCLAIMER: I apologize for the poorer picture quality, I forgot to bring my Nikon so these are all iPhone pictures! Inside was a vast array of present and past characters from parades. They try to reuse whenever they can with updates and changes. All the staff is paid. Unlike the Rose Parade, they do not enlist volunteers. They make everything in house in many locations around the city; it’s an amazing process that continues year round. As soon as the current year parades are over they start planning and building for the next.

Some are stranger than others!

Some downright weird!

I noticed a trend; the artists like perky boobs; and it wasn’t cold in there!

The Queen of England even made an appearance in their styrofoam shaping room!
Along with the Chick-fil-A cows. They make these for them at a price of about $16,000 each. Nice side job! Apparently their ears double as coat racks!

They have this cool NC machine that can carve out these huge designs in a fraction of the time it would take by hand!
Yes, that’s not snow, it’s piles of styrofoam dust from the process! It all gets recycled.

There were some “normal” figures; like this one of their own Drew Brees!

 

 

 

 

 

Buccaneer State Park- Waveland, Mississippi

On our way across the south we stayed at this really nice beach front state park in Mississippi.
Our camp spot was spacious and shaded.

There were beach front sites available for $15 more a night but we chose the more shaded and secluded spot.
It wasn’t open for the season yet, but this park even had a water park and two pools.

And being right on the water with an average elevation only a couple of feet above sea level, everything of importance such as electrical stuff was elevated!
This was the beach drive; miles of beach with nobody on them!

We stopped at this beach restaurant along the way; many to choose from!
The beach view from their rear deck. It’s quiet now but the Spring Break crowd was coming that weekend.
Another crazily named restaurant along this beach route.
Regardless of which restaurant, the food was great. Jan had this Seafood Étouffée in another place called Cuz’s.
To combat the relentless surf and storm damage, their houses are all built on elevated lots or platforms on stilts (or both!). I don’t know if you can see, but this guy had secondary precautions; a boat underneath!

Here’s nice fixer upper for sale; the possibilities are boundlesss!
This one is brick all the way to the ground, but the living area is still elevated. He was also on a hill, so probably 6 or 8 feet above sea level!
Another one under construction.

 

Lake Lurleen State Park- Coker, Alabama

This was a huge beautiful reservoir! Much needed relief from the big cities of Florida and Georgia!
It even has a swimming beach with paddle boats and kayaks for rent .
This was a really nicely laid out park with lots of space between campers. You can’t tell in this picture but that was another Grand Design Solitude in the middle of this shot.
And of course the local residents!

And this was our spot! Other than being laid out backwards so we couldn’t have our front door facing the lake AND hook up our sewer, it was very nice. We loved the private deck overlooking the water!

All the trees were getting their leaves. They were beautiful!
Spring flowers too!
Our resident woodpecker was too quick to get a good clear shot, but his metallic red colored head was cool!
Nice greenery or water views from every window!

And nice sunsets too!

Savannah, Georgia

While our rig was being repaired (Finally fixed the slide issue!) we went to Savannah for a few days and stayed in a VRBO. We have no pics of that, it wasn’t anything picture-worthy , but lots of pics of this beautiful city!
As I said before, our apartment was nothing to write home about but this was Forsyth Park right across the street. Everything was within walking distance which was good since finding parking for Big Blue was nearly impossible!
We took a Hop On-Hop Off trolley/bus tour of Savannah. Along the way these folks in costume would hop aboard to give us entertaining spiels about various characters in Savannah’s history.

We saw many of these old colonial traditional homes; very well kept and preserved.

We loved all these streets lined on both sides with Live Oak trees; so named because unlike most trees, as soon as they drop their leaves they sprout new ones right away!
Some of the many beautiful displays of Spring flowers. The Azaleas were especially abundant and thriving here!

From the original layout of the city, they have always had these 24 squares around . All different and all beautiful. Each had some sort of monument or statue commemorating one of their historical figures.

We loved this building with it’s tower.
A few buildings had these ornate cast iron downspouts. Our bus driver/guide called them dolphins but we think they’re just fish; still cool!

 

Some of the homes and bridges also had this ornate iron work.
An original pharmacy from back then.
And there was a film crew in town filming Gemini Man with Will Smith; all we saw was the police cars blocking the street and the movie set trailers.
We also saw the Old Savannah Cotton Exchange. Now it’s occupied by various shops, businesses, restaurants and hotels but keeps it’s historic charm.

These bridges were used back then for the assessors could inspect loads of cotton for sale so they could assess it’s value.
The cobblestones here were stones the original merchants had in the holds of their ships as ballast when they came to America. Once they arrived they would offload them and load up whatever treasures they would buy to take back.
While in Savannah we had to of course take a riverboat cruise!
Very authentic looking paddlewheel, until you notice a few things. Here, the paddlewheel isn’t touching the water.
And then there were four of these huge diesel exhaust pipes!
And the original smoke stacks now houses life jackets! Oh well, that’s progress; still cool though!
A view back towards the Cotton Exchange from the boat.
A closeup of that gilded clock tower reveals the clocks apparently no long are functional. At least they could have matched the time on the clocks for those that are OCD!

The interior was beautiful as well!
One of the free river ferry boats.
A view of the suspension bridge nearby. Impressive piece of engineering!

Nearby construction; they’re tearing down an old power plant to make way for new construction.
One of the many massive freighters and tankers that visit this bustling port of entry. This one has a ramp out the fantail where they can drive vehicles on and off.
Here’s a steam shovel, I mean excavator (sorry Reeve!) coming off. It gives you a sense of the size of this massive ship!
Wood chips for paper production I assume.
This is a statue in the park along the Savannah River of a woman who always greeted all the ships arriving by waving a white flag; she is legendary. Legend has it that she met and fell in love with a sailor who promised to return for her when he left. She did this for over 40 years!
Some of our locals to greet the passing boats!
Down the river a ways was Fort Jackson.; a restored 19th century fort built in 1808, used in the War of 1812 and used by the Confederates during the Civil war.
Every time this riverboat passes they treat the passengers to a firing of the cannon!

Winter in Florida (After the Orlando and Cuba Adventures!)

larry and penny’s memorial park & campground

While staying at Larry and Penny’s Memorial Park campground there were wonderful hiking and biking trails leaving right from the park; no need to drive anywhere!.
From the park it followed the path in the previous picture past this beautiful lake (with the obligatory lawyer signs about dangers of alligators of course!)
This path went about 9 miles towards Biscayne Bay along this channel; beautiful!
With lots of wildlife along the way including these cute Iguanas! Lots of them!

everglades national park

 

This amphitheater area was completely wiped out; much rebuilding to do. The campground was also closed for renovations.

The boardwalk continued out to the coast where it’s supposed to loop back. Notice all the barren trees?
Unfortunately Mother Nature didn’t think it should; blocked off from storm damage!
We doubled back and went around the other way; same thing!
This walkway made from Trex® was no match for the hurricanes fury! Instead of breaking and splintering like wood, it just succumbed by twisting and bending from the force of the storm surge!
But the wildlife remains!

hillsborough state park

This was a nice park that was very close to our campground in Thonotosassa.
This tree was hollow inside but still growing!
I took this shot by pointing my camera up inside the tree with the flash on to show that it truly was hollow!

Stuff grows just about anywhere and everywhere!

As you can see, a beautiful path; although not well marked, we got lost a few times!
Very tropical and jungle-like, don’t you think?

visiting my sister and joe in naples

We went to visit them just before Christmas at their home in Naples. Their home miraculously survived the hurricane with little damage but they said many trees in the area were uprooted and destroyed along with some structures.
The view from their Lanai.
At the entrance to their neighborhood there are these beautiful bronze horses!

our time in the tampa area

Bok Tower Gardens was beautiful! This bell tower has 60 bells ranging from 16 pounds to nearly 12 tons! It is the focal point and they have daily Carillon (bell) concerts; such a beautiful sound!

These iron gates by the tower were interesting too!

 

The layout of the property.

Mr. Bok’s reasoning for opening up this property to the community!
This hand laid patio at the visitors center was amazing! Each flat stone was laid on edge in this mesmerizing pattern!

 

The courtyard of the visitors center.

There was this beautiful Pinewood estate mansion on the property as well to explore. It’s a 1930’s 20 room estate; each room was a different style of architecture and design by request of the original owner, Charles Buck; very interesting!
his office
One of the sitting rooms.
And the main living room
The master bedroom.
With Mr. Buck’s Rum and cigars of course!

thonotosassa (northeast of tampa)

Our campground was an okay place, nothing noteworthy, other than these two local residents. They run the park! So much so that they put bronze ones at the entrance!

visiting friends and family while in thonotosassa

Barb and Zach came and stayed in Clearwater while we were in the area. We went over a few times to visit and enjoy the beach with them.
Zach just chillin’ at the beach soaking up rays!
Even their cat Mimi seemed to like the beach from the safety of her cat carriage !
The view from their condo.
The shockingly white sandy beaches of Florida!

Barb enjoying(?) the chilly water!

A passing sailboat.
Claude and Hope came out to the area for their annual trek to see the Phillies Spring training. We took this Manatee dolphin tour with them. We saw plenty of Dolphin but unfortunately no Manatee.
Harbor fun- boat names!
The captain has a good sense of humor!
A Coast Guard buoy tender.

On our way out!
Can you see these two chasing us?

Old Glory!
Harbor residents.
Some pretty pricey homes and boats along the shores down here!

This mangrove island is a bird sanctuary (and it smelled like it has been for quite awhile !
The boys.
After a lovely lunch!
We met my sister Anne and her husband Joe at a halfway point one last time before we left Florida at Hurricane Charley’s in Punta Gorda for lunch.
Some leftover hurricane memorabilia?

goodbye florida! on to new adventures!

 

Varadero and the Solymar Resort

As you can see this was a huge all-inclusive resort. I’ve marked where our suites are. They were top floor overlooking the pool with an ocean view.
Both units were beautiful, but we ended up with this end unit with a huge balcony.

Nice deck.
A smaller balcony next to our bed overlooking the pool; there were two of them.
A spacious bath with his and her sinks, a jacuzzi tub, shower, walk-in closet and a separate area with toilet and bidet. There was also a second half bath off the great room.

Our view of the resort grounds.

And the ocean.
Our deck from out on the roof looking back. Yes, that’s my Bucanero beer!
The lobby was equally beautiful with these enormous vines hanging down!

More close-ups of the grounds.

One of the numerous bars available.
And of course, the white sandy beach!

We did venture into town for some shopping and sightseeing. We took this carriage for our return trip to the resort.

On our trip back we suffered a “flat tire”; the rubber slipped off the steel rim and our driver had to stop and re-attach it.

But alas, our vacation is over, back to the grind 😎

Goodbye, Cuba. Until next time! We would love to return and see even more of this fascinating, beautiful country !