OMG

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-pty-pty_maps&hsimp=yhs-pty_maps&hspart=pty&p=notre+dame+catedral+burning#id=1&vid=ebc53bca88817ebf4ac3c40ecfe8e604&action=view

 

Click above to see the pictures—I just saw that the ancient cathedral is on fire as we speak and it’s steeple has collapsed and its stain glass windows are dying as well…..So sad

 

 

 

 

And I’m back–another Pleasant Valley Monday Maybe  (yeah I saw the Monkess back in the day—but in my defense my mother made me take my younger sister—though in truth they didn’t put on a bad show).    So did anybody make to any monasteries since my last episode?  If anybody does or has or has intimate knowledge in the past (including reincarnation) tell us about it on our comments section.

 

 

Today thought I’d do some odds and ins out and about that you might find interesting.  Most if not all will be in Florida—but hey would love you to come to this state and see something in addition to the amusement parks.  For those of you who live in Florida it is a great reference how you and your friends and/or family can get away, have that adventure and make it home in time to see the newest episode of Game of Thrones—as I think adventures come in all forms and venues…..

 

 

Oh and that writing to me idea—if there’s something you’re looking for or something you have found and would like to share write and tell me….i love hearing from somebody beside my own inner adventure which as you know can be a bit strange at time.

 

 

 

 

 

The Florida Strawberry Festival is an 11-day  (in March so you got almost a year to plan) community event celebrating the strawberry harvest of Eastern Hillsborough County. Each year, over 500,000 visitors enjoy the festival’s headline entertainment, youth livestock shows, rides, exhibits of commerce and, of course, its strawberry shortcake.

https://flstrawberryfestival.com/history/

                                                                                  Here’s the history and access to lots more information….and yes been there done that

and a great time doing it.

 

 

 

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Cedar Key is on the West (Gulf) Coast of the state of (yeah) Florida.  The area started out as the Western terminal of David Levy Yulee rail road which he ran from Fernandina Beach (north of Jacksonville) to this western island before the Civil War.    OK so even most people are saying “Never heard of it.”  But the town/island north of Tampa did quite well for about 20 years and in 1880 it had hit 2,000 occupants and had become a major producer of pencil slats Thus keeping a nice batch of saw mills busy and alas eventually decimating the cedar tree population.  with this it declined into rustic decay which some feel is what gave the city much of its charm today.

 

 

And in the place of all those trees, we now have a forest of tourists, who come here for a day, a weekend or more, making the island charmingly busy.

 

 

Things that might interest you in Cedar Key:

 

a.  Great Sea food many of the restaurants right on the Gulf with great views

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurants-g34126-c33-Cedar_Key_Florida.html

 

 

b.  Bring your boat or charter one and you can rent boats as well as kayaks and cruise the coves that are so abundant here

 

 

 

c.  Go to the beaches (at low tide) to collect shells.

 

 

d.    Don’t have a boat—there’s the City Pier for fishing

 

e.  want a leisurely time—walk or a bit more spirited one–rent (or bring your own) bike and explore the island  (There a walking tour booklet that can be purchased at the Cedar Key Historical Society   https://cedarkeyhistory.org/ )

and the Historical building (built in 1871) is at State Road 24 and 2nd Street.

 

 

f.  and don’t forget the Historical Society’s museum:

Cedar Key Historical Museum

g.  And of course there’s shopping to do and people watching to prefect.

 

 

What more could you want in one place—well there actually is more at this end of the road place…check out the Cedar Key site for a Visitor’s Guide, as well as Places to eat, play and stay, not to mention more things to do, a look at the natural areas of the island and of course Festivals, the beach and on and on:  (click here for the more and more:

Cedar Key Florida Chamber of Commerce

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

check out a ghost town on the west coast south of Cedar key:  http://ghosttowns.com/states/fl/bayport.html

You can also swim at nearby Pine Island and from “Bayport south on County Road 595 you’ll come to Hernando Beach Park with a long fishing pier and dreamy salt marsh vista….on the east side a dip into Jenkins’s Creek swimming whole…and there’s a small sand beach.”  Orlando Sentinel

 

 

 

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and now the east coast:

Ormond Beach is to the north of Daytona Beach near the confluence of the Tomoka and Halifax rivers and it’s believed that some of the early settlers were actually persons shipwrecked here.  Those the first noted settlers were Franciscan friars, who established missions in the area around 1587.  It still belonged to Spain in 1804 when some English colonist living in the Bahamas (English sympathizers that had fled the colonies after the British lost the war were given land in those island to settle on—see particularly the Abacos) were offered land grants here.

 

 

 

If you like Auto racing you’ll want to check out the beach here as this is where the whole racing thing started in Florida.  The hard packed beaches were used in 1902 by R.E. Olds and Alexander WInton to stage the first race here.  This then became a Winter Speed Carnival –a yearly event attracting fans from across the country.    And most stayed at the massive Ormond Hotel.    Of course Daytona Race Track is just a few miles away—but what you might not know is that there is a museum here dedicated to the

Birth Place Of Speed Museum

https://www.ormondbeach.org/87/Birthplace-of-Speed

160 E. Granada Ave (route 40) 32176

a memorial that celebrates the early years of racing when the race was bounded by the sea rather than the infield.  Many pictures of early cars as well as the men who drove and kept them moving. There are replicas of early cars including the Stanley Steamer that was doing 197 mph in 1907 when it crashed and burned.  Here you’ll see Olds, Vanderbilt, Curtiss, Oldfield, Campbell, De Palma and Duesenberg. and don’t forget John D. Rockefeller who lived just down the street.

 

 

And while you can’t see it now since the Ormond Garage caught fire and burned n 1976,  “one of auto history’s most important landmarks” is gone there is a historic marker, in front of SunTrust Bank, built on its ashes on East Granada Boulevard for those who enjoy seeing where things once were.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomoka State Park  (https://www.visitflorida.com/en-us/listing.a0t4000000A9Y91AAF.html )here with camping, scenic drive, store, boating ramp, museum, sculpture of legendary chief Tomokie, as well as lots of wild life, saltwater fishing, boat ramp, snack bar and restaurant might interest you as well

 

 

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If you’re into another kind of history Ormond has:

 

The Casements

http://www.thecasements.net/

25 Riverside Dr.

This sprawling mansion was once Rockefeller’s house, it was built by an Episcopal minister (Harwood Huntington) in 1900 it is 3 stories and 80 rooms with most of its windows overlooking the Halifax River on the west or the Atlantic on the east.   It became the Rockefeller house in 1918 when Huntington moved to California and John D. bought it.  Rockefeller had previously wintered at the now gone Ormond Hotel (which was still in existence when I first came to Florida in the 70’s) for his health—and that building was just across SR 40 from this house.  Once he had it he made it his own extending some rooms, having the wide galleries enclosed and putting up a wrought iron fence.  His five sons spent time here in the winter with their father and finally in 1937 Rockefeller died here at age 98.

 

In 1941 it became a woman’s junior college with the addition of a concrete block dorm.  Then a decade later it was a retirement home and by the early 70’s it was empty, damaged and going to be destroyed when it was placed on the National Register of Historical Places which inspired the city to save it as a community center.  Today it has been repaired and refurbished but it is no longer the grand home that the millionaire had with its stained glass, velvet curtains, grand gardens  which ran down to the water’s edge and were filled with gold fish ponds and transected with paths.  But still I’m glad they saved it.

 

 

The Ormand Hotel is another story—-

the grounds are now boring condos.  Flagler bought it in 1890 for $112,000  It had been built by James Price, of Kentucky and John Anderson of Maine (early settlers) in the late 1880s for tourists even though the strip of land it was on had no bridges to the main land and the nearest railroad was over 50 miles away.  But the bridges and railroad came showing that the saying If you build it actually does work some time.

 

Flagler added elevators and even reconstructed the railroad bridge so that wealthy guest could put their railroad cars up to the hotel’s entrance.  There was crystal and haute decor everywhere with spacious lobbies and grand ball rooms filled with exotic plants.  You could sail, fish, there was even a seven-hole golf course and of course a medieval tournament where grown men could dress in armor and joust on the lawns during a week dedicated to such activities.  And it was the place where those who raced on Ormand Beach came to indulge in the good life.  Here the Fords, Astors, Vanderbilts and other Titans mixed with assorted European counts and other assorted nobility. and thus it was named the “Millionaire’s Colony.”

 

Rockefeller occupied a specially built wing on the second floor.  It is said by some that was after a fight with Flagler, a partner in Standard Oil, that he left the hotel and bought the adjoining mansion.    But he, along with the rest of the rich and famous, had left the area by the end of the 20’s and the hotel struggled and became everything from a night club to a hotel management school and then a retirement home for ministers and the like barely keeping financially afloat.   Now it is gone replaced by the condos I mention previously.  With only the name of the Blvd (Granada) to remind us of the wonderful past and the rich and famous, the beauties and their beaus and don’t forget the robber barons came to race and joust in the warmth of the Eastern Central Florida coast.