Ever since Truman’s time it’s been a place for Presidents to “get away”. Presidents Kennedy, Carter, Clinton have all vacationed here. It has also been used for important government meetings and conferences. Very unpretentious and seemingly locked in a 1950’s time capsule you almost expect to see Ricky and Lucy emerge in the twin bedroom.
Free Range Key West Chicken It was a cloudy day here in paradise. First stop was Truman’s Little White House. The house was built in 1890 to serve as the home of the Commandant and the Paymaster of the U.S. Naval Base. Truman was in residence here for 175 days between 1946 – 52. He changed from his business suits into his Key West uniform of gaudy tropical shirts upon arrival. There are even photos of him shirtless on fishing trips. Ever since Truman’s time it’s been a place for Presidents to “get away”. Presidents Kennedy, Carter, Clinton have all vacationed here. It has also been used for important government meetings and conferences. Very unpretentious and seemingly locked in a 1950’s time capsule you almost expect to see Ricky and Lucy emerge in the twin bedroom. Walking by the Custom House Museum of the Key West Art and Historical Society we were intrigued by the sculptures surrounding the building, the banners advertising their exhibits and the building itself, which was the old customs house so we decided to check it out. It did not disappoint and in fact was most enjoyable. There were two artists’ exhibits – one of Key West street scenes by Stephen LaPierre whose work we really liked and another of carved wood paintings by a Cuban-American artist. On the history side there were two well done exhibits on Hemingway (he was a really handsome young man) and, of course, Henry Flagler and his railroad. For dinner tonight we decided on a TripAdvisor recommendation that was off the beaten path. Kaya Island Eats is on the outskirts of Key West (actually an entirely different island). Superb meal – nice people. We highly recommend it if you are in the area. Best meal yet. Sesame crusted Tuna and an Asian Creole Fusion Mahi Mahi for our entrees. Yum.
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Dry Tortugas National Park You know the photo – the aerial shot of the island with the fort on it. When you saw the photo you thought it would be cool to go there. We felt the same way so at 7:15 am this morning we were checking in to board the Yankee Freedom Catamaran for the 2 1/2 hour ride to Dry Tortugas National Park and Fort Jefferson. Visiting Fort Jefferson has been on our Bucket List for some time. Ponce de Leon sailed to these Islands in 1513 and named them Las Tortugas for all the Turtles he found here which provided his men with a source of high protein food. The Dry part refers to the fact that there is no fresh water available. The Tortugas are strategically located along busy shipping lanes and the Fort here prevented attacks along the Gulf coast. It is the third largest fort ever built in this country. It took 30 years to build (1846-1875) it was never fully finished or armed and never engaged in battle. It did, however, serve it’s purpose by protecting the coastline and assuring peace. The army abandoned the fort in 1874 and the navy took over in the 1880’s and dredged the harbor. It was used briefly during both World Wars and then abandoned again. The fort became a National Monument in 1935 and in 1992 100 square of the Tortugas area became a National Park. Most of it is under water so it is really a marine park. After the civil war Fort Jefferson was also used as a prison. Dr. Samuel Mudd who was one of the Lincoln assassination co-conspirators was imprisoned here. And now at days end we can check off that particular item and when we leave Key West two days hence there will be another item to check off. One of the interesting things about Bucket Lists is that they may not be as wonderful as you imagine, but you won’t know unless you have done it and you don’t want to say that you never tried. All in all it was a good day. The sun was shining, the air was warm and the breeze was blowing. The guide was fun and informative, and the boat was brand new -- three months old. We had plenty of time on shore to tour with the guide, explore on our own, and go for a swim. For about one hour on the way back we hit some seriously rough water, which did not agree with many on board, including Marsha. With some TLC from the crew and smoother seas she did recover in about an hour and enjoyed the rest of the trip. On our car trips, we are pretty loyal to Choice Hotels -- a national brand that includes a wide variety of hotel chains, such as Comfort Inn, Quality Inn, Sleep Inn, etc. This sounds pretty boring, and in some sense it is. Boring means uninteresting -- but it also means predictable, well understood, and efficient. When we book a room at a Comfort Inn vs. a Quality Inn, we understand the differences and why Comfort is a little more expensive: do you get more that may save you money in the long run. Choice also has a frequent stayer program as well as gives discounts for seniors. The frequent stayer program can sometimes be very good -- as in 3 x credits when you travel in the slowest season -- typically the season we travel. This means that get can get up to a 30% discount, but I don't think we have ever managed that. We rarely make reservations for our hotel rooms -- favoring preserving the spontaneity of our travels by making our reservations when we know where we are going to spend the night. There are some exceptions: like when we are visiting a big city or some place where there are a lot of visitors at the time we are going. We used to make these reservations by phone, but now the Choice Hotel iPhone app has replaced the phone reservations. It is much easier to understand what is available, how much it will cost, plus you don't have to listen to the up selling efforts of the poor telephone reservation clerk. One thing we have learned about prices is that supply and demand is alive and well in the hotel business. For example, we left Washington DC the day before the Presidential Inauguration because the price for our room more than doubled if we had stayed there the Sunday night before Monday's Inauguration. The price for our hotel outside Washington was about $80/night versus $180 for that Sunday night. The other effect is the further South and West you go, the cheaper the hotel. Combine those two effects and you get the $45/night room in a Comfort Inn in Williamsburg VA that Inauguration Sunday night! Another effect we have noticed is that hotel rooms near airports are less expensive than other rooms. Combine that with or leisurely car trips, a good (yet remarkably inexpensive) GPS navigator, and you can stay in hotels near the airport yet be able to find nearly anything you want with your GPS navigator. We occasionally stay in something more interesting -- and usually more expensive. But one of the things that makes our long road trips possible is managing the hotel costs by sticking with one organization. This trip, we are also trying something new: AirBnB. This is a website that matches people who have rooms to rent with travelers looking for places to stay. There are lots of measures taken to insure the safety of both parties involved in the transaction. So, we are splurging a bit and staying in a B and B we found through AirBnB for the two weeks we will be in New Orleans. Here is the place we will be staying while we are in New Orleans. The price varies on how long you will stay. For example, staying a single night at the place we've selected is $175/night versus $125/night when you rent for an entire week. Marsha takes a stroll on the beach Having read about the construction of the railroad to Key West (1912) we were really looking forward to the drive down the Keys today and to actually see some of the places mentioned. We made four stops on the way down. The first stop was at a small community park, the second at the monument to those that died in the great labor day hurricane of 1935 (they didn’t give them names back then), the third was a stroll from a parking area to view the 7 mile bridge before we crossed it and the last was at a park along a causeway for a picnic lunch. The general scene along the road is an endless array of Motels, T-shirt shops, and fast food. This is interspersed with miles of mangrove lining the roadway and impossibly blue water and sky. Lunch entertainment, Kite Boarding: Watch him jump off the surface of the water. Upon arrival in Key West we refreshed ourselves with a swim in the hotel pool and then took the shuttle bus into the heart of Key West. Parking is so difficult in the center of town that all the hotels provide shuttle buses. We walked several blocks to the restaurant we picked out with the help of TripAdvisor We ate outside in the colorful courtyard at the Blue Heaven restaurant (very good and recommended) and then walked again through the streets back to the shuttle bus stop. Just after leaving the restaurant we met a local Conch who was just standing out in the street having a beer and talking to anyone who cared enough to stop for a chat. A Vietnam vet who had the scars from the bullet holes to prove it. When he returned to Key West he became the 2nd black hired to work for the Key West fire department. He talked about his nearby home proudly festooned with an American flag, his 6 children and 11 grandchildren. We took photos and shook his hand and bade him a good night. Day 13 of our trip: that explains everything.
As we sat having our morning coffee outside at the Starbucks in the Town Square at the Villages and were planning out our day I mentioned a Museum I thought would make a nice stop along our route -- actually a detour that extended our travel time by an hour. But it would be worth it. So off we went to Winter Park and the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art. We found a parking place, gathered up our cameras and were stopped dead in our tracks by the sign on the door. CLOSED ON MONDAY. Back in the car for the drive south and upon arrival in Homestead (5 or so hours later) we checked out our favorite Mexican restaurant, El Toro Taco, which had a sign on their door CLOSED ON MONDAY. I must say that reading some recent reviews of El Toro makes me wonder a little about this place. It was cited for sanitary violations 6 months ago. Although I can understand that these things happen, there is something about reading this in "print" that lingers in your mind and makes us less inclined to eat here, even if everything has been corrected. Shows the power of a reputation. We did eventually find dinner and now it’s time to rest up for what hopefully will be a wonderful drive to Key West tomorrow. We will return to Winter Park in a couple of weeks when heading back that way but it definitely won’t be on a Monday. One bright spot in the day was the mandatory swing by “ROBERT IS HERE” fruit stand in Homestead for a Key Lime Smoothie. They were OPEN ON MONDAY . Poking around the back of Robert's while waiting, I came across these two parrots. They were two of the more interesting things we saw today. That may say something. I particularly like the noises made by the yellow/blue one while the red one preens h/is/er mate. St. Augustine LighthouseBefore leaving St. Augustine we drive out to the Lighthouse and Marsha climbed the 200+ steps to the top and the 200+ stairs back down. Not bad for someone with three tears in their knee. Physical therapy does wonders. JoAnn McManamy New Home in The Villages FLJoAnn in her livingroom By mid-afternoon we were at The Villages to visit our friend JoAnn McManamy who moved here from Lexington a year ago. The Villages is a large retirement community with many separate Villages in central Florida between Ocala and Orlando. JoAnn has a beautiful home and some terrific new friends. She gave us a car tour of the community and then took Harry for a ride in her lemon yellow golf cart, which she has named “Lemoncella”. JoAnn prepared a lovely dinner for us and her friend Kim and next-door neighbor David. After the company left, JoAnn and Marsha cried their way through this week’s episode of Downton Abbey and it was time to call it a day. Finding our way in St. Augustine was a challenge this morning since there were many streets closed off for a road race and our GPS decided not to have any idea where we were just when we needed that information. Somehow we arrived at our destination with time to spare. Stop 1 was the tour of Flagler College’s main building. Why, you say? The current main building of Flagler College was Henry Flagler’s Ponce de Leon Hotel. Who was Henry Flagler? Henry Flagler, a founding partner of Standard Oil Company (with John D. Rockefeller) came to Florida in the late 1880’s with his wife who hoped to get relief from her consumptive symptoms. Flagler was not happy with the accommodations available and decided to build a hotel, and then a railroad from Jacksonville for his customers, then he built another hotel in Palm Beach and another railroad and didn't stop until his railroad reached Key West. Where the railroad went, towns and then cities sprung up. Now, when Henry Flagler built something he really built it. Which in the case of the Ponce de Leon included having Louis Comfort Tiffany design the interior. The photos should give you an idea. The students at Flagler will have a tough time adjusting to the real world after eating in their not so shabby dining hall. In the afternoon, Harry sketched while Marsha went off to tour St. Augustine’s Ximenez-Fatio House on Aviles Street, which is the oldest street in the United States to appear on a map. This visit confirmed a long held belief that the most important factor in whether you enjoy a tour is the enthusiasm of the tour guide for their subject. We met up again for a late lunch at the Casa Maya Restaurant. Thank you Jeff Blaustein for the recommendation. Its also, great to be eating outside.
Note from Harry: This was a day of dark images. Yesterday was the first day I was reminded again about slavery in the United States. We toured Beaufort looking at the "summer cottages" used by the plantation owners in the hot summer months when they couldn't stand the oppressive heat of the plantation. We heard how 90% of the population of South Carolina were slaves, how the first meeting to draft the Ordinance of Secession (by which South Carolina led the withdrawal of the Southern states from the Union) was held at one of these plantation owners summer cottages, the Milton Maxey House in Beaufort, known today as the "Secession House". An inscription on the basement wall reads: “In this house the first meeting of Secession was held in South Carolina.” According to local tradition, after voting, the Beaufort County Delegation went directly to the boat landing and set off for Charleston to cast their ballots for secession. As a result, Beaufort was an early target of the Federal forces. No matter how far we are from the Civil War, I still cannot intellectually accept that people got so carried away with their greed that slavery was something they would defend. I suppose that got me into a foul mood and so today when we visited a church that was just a set of walls and columns that had been a ruin for 150 years in the middle of enormous dark, droopy trees, and a cemetery that was similarly adorned by these enormous trees with Spanish moss, I was viewing most things with a sad eye. Our first stop this morning was at the Old Sheldon Church ruins outside of Beaufort. Local plantation owners built the church between 1745 and 1753. The British burned the church in 1779 and it was rebuilt in 1826 in the Greek Revival style. Then in January of 1865 Sherman’s troops burned the church during their march to the sea and only the brick pillars remain to this day. At least that is what the plaques say. However, new evidence has recently come to light indicating that Sherman did not burn the church but that the local people gutted the church for materials to rebuild their homes that were burned by Sherman just leaving the brick pillars. Whatever the history of the ruins, it is a very stirring sight. Especially since it is surrounded by live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss and scattered graves. Sheldon ChurchFrom Discover South Carolina: Sheldon Church has lain in ruin for more than 120 years. Its gable roof, pediment, windows, and interior have disappeared, but the classic simplicity of its design still remains. One of the first Greek-Revival structures built in the United States, Prince William's Parish Church, erected 1745-55, was once one of the most impressive churches in the Province. During the Revolution, the Patriots are believed to have stored gun powder in it. In 1779, when the British General Augustine Prevost invaded the Lowcountry, the church was burned by a detachment which according to tradition, was commanded by the flamboyant local Tory, Andrew Deveaux. Rebuilt in 1826, the church was again burned by Sherman's men in 1865. The ruins are nevertheless a picturesque site from which the visitor can visualize the grandeur of the pre-Revolutionary church. Another piece of the story comes from an excellent source on this property, the SCIWAY website: However, another possible fate has come to light. In a letter dated February 3, 1866, after the end of the Civil War, Milton Leverett wrote that "Sheldon Church not burn't. Just torn up in the inside, but can be repaired." The inside of the church was apparently gutted by whites and blacks who needed the materials to rebuild their homes burned by Sherman's army. Between Sheldon and BonaventureAfter leaving Sheldon Church ruins, we drove on back roads for a while occasionally coming upon allées of live oak trees. The trees are still there the mansion houses long since gone. Bonaventure Cemetery, Savannah GAA few hours later we were in Savannah, a city we have visited before. However, finding ourselves with a few hours to spare and not having ever visited the famous Bonaventure cemetery we decided to head in that direction. We like cemeteries, Lexington’s Ye Old Burying Ground is, of course, a favorite but there are other’s on our list. Hope Cemetery in Barre, Vermont home to generations of stone cutters takes the award for the most beautiful and unusual monuments to their dead. Paris’ Père Lachaise Cemetery's claim to fame is that it houses the remains of those who contributed so much to French culture plus a few others like Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. Bonaventure gets the award for most evocative with it’s lush greenery (those Spanish moss dripping Live Oaks again with palms and magnolias) it’s dark, dusty and creepy. From the Bonaventure Historical Society's website: Though not Savannah’s oldest cemetery, Bonaventure is certainly its most famous and hauntingly beautiful. Quintessentially Southern Gothic, it has captured the imaginations of writers, poets, naturalists, photographers and filmmakers for more than 150 years. Part natural cathedral, part sculptural garden, Bonaventure transcends time. We ended the day in St. Augustine with dinner at the Floridian restaurant. They describe the cuisine as “Innovative southern fare for omnivores, herbivores and localvores”. We don’t particular care how they describe it – it was good.
The key to pronunciation used here is “Beautiful BEAU-fort”. The Beaufort in North Carolina is BOW-fort. Beautiful is a good descriptor for this town. Everywhere you look on the residential streets of old town there are immense live oak trees draped in Spanish moss and resurrection fern. These are interspersed with crepe myrtle, magnolia and palmettos. And then there are the flowering shrubs (yes even in January). The homes underneath and next to all this greenery are a profusion of architectural styles. 1770 Federal (most of which were later embellished with columns), 1840 anti-bellum with wide verandas to catch the sea breezes and a variety of replacement homes built after the great fire of 1907. What saved all these anti-bellum mansions from Sherman’s torch was that 44 of the mansions were used as union hospitals including one for the Massachusetts’ 54th Regiment. Every war fought on American soil found it’s way to Beaufort. The French blockaded the harbor during the French and Indian war in 1756. Just like Lexington there are British soldiers buried here after the Battle of Port Royal in 1779. During the war of 1812 there was a British blockade and, then there was the Civil War. Add to that hurricanes and devastating fires. It’s a miracle that Beaufort has survived at all. The anti-bellum mansions were summer homes for the plantation owners. The weather and risk of disease drove them off the Sea Island plantations in the summer. These gorgeous homes were used only four months out of year. We signed up for a two-hour, two-mile historical walking tour with local guide and definite character, Jon Sharp. There were other shorter general walking tours and the picturesque horse draw carriages with driver/guides. Jon’s tour may be a bit much for the non-history buff but Marsha definitely enjoyed it. Harry wasn't so sure but is still talking about all the things he learned today. Beaufort has a lovely waterfront park for strolling and sitting. The sitting is really lovely because of the swings. We are talking swings for grown ups. Today the weather was perfect for this activity. Dinner tonight in the nearby small town of Port Royal at the Dockside Restaurant with shrimp boats tied up just outside the windows. Yes, the shrimp was really fresh and delicious.
It was a beautiful blue sky and sunny today as we drove from Wilmington, NC to Beaufort, SC. Rt. 17 South all the way – no Interstates. Yes there were stretches where the mini-golf establishments were separated only by the t-shirt shops and fast food restaurants. But there were also lovely vistas over the marshes, views of the intercoastal highway from the bridges and the setting sun through the trees. Midday we stopped in Myrtle Beach and walked along the boardwalk and out onto one of the fishing piers. We love these kinds of places off-season when there are relatively few people around. Tomorrow we will stay put here in Beaufort and explore. Our short interactions with some of the locals tonight indicate that there are some truly nice folks here. |
Table of ContentsHarry Forsdick & Marsha BakerWe enjoy traveling and writing about our trips. Not only does it provide a way to express ourselves with words and pictures, but it also is a good way to remember what we've done... Categories
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