Everglades, NP - Into Town

Time for a foray into Homestead, the closest town to the Everglades. We want to visit the Biscayne NP, the Coral Castle and then make a stop at McDonalds to catch some wi-fi. But first things first: a stop at Knaus Farms where they have a U-Pick strawberry area. Since 2 buses had just disgorged lots of kids, we decided to go for the gusto: the sticky buns they made. No benches or tables so we walked back to the car to indulge. They were as good as they looked.

Biscayne NP is pretty interesting but I wish we could have seen more of it. We wanted to take the glass-bottom boat trip out to the coral reefs but it is no longer running. Maybe in the future they will find a new concessioner who will offer the boat rides. We did enjoy their displays. I didn’t know this is what a turtle next would look like.

And this turtle shell.

Meanwhile we toured the VC with its many displays and dioramas of ocean life and the reef, watched a few short movies which were excellent and then wandered among the quilts which were part of a special show on vanishing species and environmental change. Amazing quilts.

Here’s a close-up of the stitching on one of them.

Here’s the front door of the VC with its hurricane protection. After going through Hurricane Andrew when the park was almost destroyed, they beefed up their protection. Folding Steel covers.

Then we walked around the grounds and out a short peninsula formed by fossilized coral.

Next we headed over to the Coral Castle, an interesting vision of one man very like Solomon’s Castle which we saw a few days ago. Here’s the recipe for this interesting site.

        1100 tons of fossilized coral

        simple, hand-made tools

        access to a junkyard for parts

        a wild imagination

        a dose of business sense

        a 5’ tall, 110 lb. Latvian immigrant named Edward Leedskalnin.

        Stir patiently over many years and you’ll get the Coral Castle.

Ah, but few of us have those ingredients and the patience to do this. Leedskalnin did. Spurned by the love of his life on the day prior to their wedding, he immigrated to America after the turn of the century, wandered around working many jobs and finally in 1918 landed in southern Florida for the climate after developing tuberculosis. He bought an acre of ground in Florida City for $12.00.

Here he devoted his life to creating a castle out of coral in dedication to his only love. Using tools found in a local junkyard and fashioning them to suit his uses, he slowly but surely carved huge pieces of coral into fantastic shapes. Then he moved his pieces using an old Republic truck chassis 10 miles north to Homestead where he had bought some land next to where Rte 1 was going to be built. Since he charged 25 cents for people to come into view his castle, he wanted to be close to traffic and be visible. And, here is his castle. In December of 1951 he put a sign on his door saying ‘Going to the Hospital’ and took a bus to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. There he died of cancer in his sleep at the age of 64, having never married.

Here is the outside wall. The bottom layer, about 2’ thick, is the original coral. He then cut out the taller sections out of the coral in the ground, raised them and placed them on top of the bottom layer. He used old car leaf springs to pry these slabs apart - you can see the flat sections on the edge of each of the large coral slabs.

Here are his tools and the leaf springs which he used for crowbars.

How he built this castle and the coral constructions inside he never told. He had no electricity, he had no helpers and no machinery. They were all built at night and in secret. Remember he was a little guy and this coral is solid, huge and heavy. Some think that aliens helped him, some think that there is a magnetic vortex here but probably he knew geometry and simple tools like levers and pulleys. All he says is that he ‘knew the secret of the pyramids.’

There is a movable 9-ton gate which swings with a slight push on the metal pins he installed.

I liked the art deco circular sofa.

There is a Florida table carved in the shape of Florida and surrounded with 10,000-lb coral rock chairs. And, look, there’s Lake Okeechobee in the middle.

Here’s Gary lounging in a coral recliner. Very comfortable he noted.

Then there’s the planets carved from coral. The 20’ tall moon crescent that sits on top of the wall weighs approx. 46,000 lbs.

He had no water here until he dug a well, through the the solid coral which lay beneath his lot. When he dug it, the water table was near the top, today it is near the bottom.

Amazing.

Well, how do we top this? Ah, how about a stop at McDonalds for a soda, some fries and the wi-fi? Perfect. And that’s where we are now.

Mickey D’s certainly has upped its game. Soft seats on some of the stools, game sets for the kids (rather than the old play room) plug-ins lining the wall, wi-fi for us old adults, and colorful striped doors in the bathrooms. Obviously, Mickey D’s is trying to turn into McCafe.

Finally, while we were in civilization, we checked out Best Buy to buy me a Fit Bit or a Mis Fit. I wanted an activity checker and these two are the most popular. I finally walked out with a Mis Fit Shine and am now tracking my activities. I am actually having a bit of trouble with it. To get your information to appear, you need to double tap it. Well, I can double tap 3 or 4 or 5 or, sometimes 6, times and finally get the lights to show on the dial. That’s pretty annoying. Then, often I get only one light. Hmmm. I don’t know what’s wrong but I’m thinking that I got a lemon. However, I’ve got 15 days to try it out.

Now, can we go home? We arrived at (9:31.)