I am sorry that I didn't post this earlier in the week. I have been selfish with my time and traveling to a few historic Florida towns. That is, historic by American standards; we are still a young country.
There are few things more rejuvenating than taking a little time to relax and spend time with people I love. This week, Sarah and I took a trip into Florida's past with my sister and her friend Tom. Some of the places we went may become settings for short stories or new books. This week, they were a break from the everyday.
Our first stop was Winter Park, a beautiful town set on the shores of five small, spring-fed lakes. The town dates back to the 1840s when white Americans chased the Seminoles off their native lands and formed the state of Florida. Most of the tribe was relocated to Oklahoma. Those they couldn't catch fled to the Everglades, where they still live. Meanwhile, Winter Park became a winter home for wealthy industrialists of the nineteenth century.
There is an advantage to having lots of money when building a town. The good citizens of Winter Park had canals dug to connect the lakes and built spacious mansions along the shores. They spared no expense in creating their winter playground. Some of the houses still remain, but many have been torn down by today's wealthy residents who built even bigger homes. The four of us took a tour of the lakes on one of the five custom-built pontoon boats that cruise the canals hourly. The tour is considered one of the most scenic in Florida. There are cypress trees and live oaks growing along the canals that were here when Seminoles walked the lake shores. Today, beautifully landscaped lawns slope down to the water's edge and the campus of Rollins College occupies seventy acres of lakefront property.
Our next stop was Daytona Beach, the location of one of the oldest automobile races in the world, the Daytona 500. In the 1920s, the race was on the beach. There is still a section of the beach that cars are allowed to drive, but for the safety of the beachgoers the city no longer allows cars to race the length of the shore. The race has been moved to Daytona Speedway, but it is still one of the premier auto races in the county.
Sarah and I are planning to set one of the Three Snowbird books in Daytona, maybe centered on another popular sport there: speedboat racing. I understand Daytona is one of the more challenging places to race, boats often having "washing machine surf" that they have to just plow through and waves that are five or six feet high. The Professor would love the excitement, but poor Cornelia might have heart failure if he goes out on one of those racing boats.
Our last stop on the trip was Silver Springs and a glass-bottomed boat tour that dates back to the 1800s. Silver Springs is now a state park, and the grounds are beautiful. The shopping pavilion was closed for renovations, much to my sister's disappointment. The tour was wonderful. The deepest of the underwater springs is 85 feet, but the water is so clear that it doesn't appear to be more than a few feet deep. Alligators lounge on the shore of a small island where birds nest. They settle on the ground under the nest and wait, hoping that one of the fledglings will fall and provide them with an afternoon snack.
Many movies have been filmed at Silver Springs and some of the props still remain, including a boat that was intentionally sunk for the film Don't Give Up the Ship, and three seven-foot-tall statues of Greek gods that were props for an I Spy episode. There is also a dug-out canoe made of Florida cypress that is older than the United States. A sample of the wood was sent to the University of Florida to try to determine just how long the canoe has been resting at the bottom of the spring.
Now that we are back from the trip, I hope to be back on schedule with the blog next week. In the meantime. I hope you enjoyed hearing about my little adventure into Florida's past.
No comments:
Post a Comment