25 | November | 2018 | Snicklefritz

We left Florida, sad to leave family, but ready to get home. Traveling up the east coast of Florida, we finally saw the sea. In Orlando, it’s all about Disney and the traffic is horrible. Driving up the coast was a little less crowded and we drove through small towns and over several bridges.

The sky was so blue.

Past NASA. It was further away from where we were staying than I thought. One year, when our children were small, we took my mother and daddy here and did the tour. It was so interesting. Back in the sixties, space travel was new and exciting and whenever there was a launch, we would gather in the gymnasium at school and watch it on tv. I remember I held a boy’s hand for the first time when Alan Shepard took off in space! He, the boy, not Alan, was sitting beside me and grabbed my hand and I let him hold it. I thought I was in love.

I love the ocean.

Over marshes and rivers.

Mailbox posts. Some looked like dolphins and some manatees.

Just wanted to show you my arm after being in the hospital. One young man had a hard time finding my veins. Stuck me a few times.

More bridges. Until finally we reached a place where we could get to the beach. I could not leave Florida without at least sticking my feet in the ocean. This land lubber needed that.

And there it was. Very few people on the beach that day. A couple of fishermen and a woman with her little boy. The water was cold, but that little boy played in it like it was as warm as bath water.

The waves were rolling in.

Just a picture to prove we were really there. It all seems like a dream of sorts. So much happened in just a few days. I just wish I had felt better.

Someone built a tiny castle in the sand and embellished it with sea shells.

But we had to continue on.

Down streets under trees dripping with Spanish moss. That’s what says the south to me. I love Spanish moss.

Past a merry-go-round in one town.

Until we saw this sign. Don’t believe it, folks. Bags of oranges were way more than a dollar, but we bought a bag and the oranges are nothing like we get in the grocery stores in Indiana. They are so much better. Juicy and sweet. The men running this particular stand were salesmen. They were constantly showing people things and offering samples. There were the usual tourist gifts. Coconut heads, alligator heads(I wondered if they were real) and t-shirts.

The first night we stopped here to eat. The food was so good, but I think my eyes were bigger than my stomach and I could barely eat what they brought me. I think my appetite was still not back, but everything I ate was good.

Just thought this house was unusual. I like houses of all sorts. There are many wonderful antebellum houses in the south.

Does this not make you think of Scarlette O’Hara and Gone With the Wind? I can see her now, running off this porch holding up her full skirts.

Some of the houses were not so grand, but interesting just the same.

Wild flowers planted beside the highway. They went for miles. Wonder if they got their seed from Wildseed Farm in Texas?

Almost like a Monet painting.

Out of the sunshine state and back into Autumn once again.

The trees were beautiful.

One town had a Confederate burial ground.

So many died in that terrible war.

Sadly this was how things were back in the day. This was in Madison, Georgia. It truly was a beautiful town. General Sherman, in his march through the south, evidently didn’t hit this town because all the antebellum houses were intact.

Some of the towns had places like this in the center of town.

One honored the Cherokee Indians.

We even saw Mulberry Street, but there were no parades.

If you were a child growing up in the fifties, you probably saw this movie on the Walt Disney Show one evening. It’s about Uncle Remus, Brer Rabbit, Brer Bear and Brer Fox. A long time ago, a little boy say at the knee of former slaves and listened to the stories they would tell. One day these stories were written down for all to read and then Walt Disney loved them so much, he made a movie about them.

I bought a book. There were books written in the dialect of the former slaves and how they told the stories, but it was hard to understand, so I bought one I could read. This is not the original author.