The Coral Castle - Originally Published 2011

Love can make men do some pretty crazy things.  Ed Leedskalnin’s personal brand of love-crazy would have to be a bit more extreme than most folks.

The Isley Brothers and Michael Bolton agree on exactly three things, one of them being that love is a wonderful thing.  Love, as wonderful as it may be, has been known to make a fellow do some strange things.  It drove Menelaus to launch a campaign against the Trojans that lasted ten years.  Love was why Lloyd Dobler held that boom box up outside of Diane Court’s house that one night.  Love also was the reason why Ed Leedskalnin left his native Latvia and built the Coral Castle in Florida.

Who is Ed Leedskalnin?  He was a pretty unassuming immigrant that arrived on the shores of the US shortly after being jilted the day before his wedding.  His master plan for winning her back was to build a house completely out of fossilized coral.  With no machine tools.  And no help.  By the way, he was only 5’ tall, 100 pounds, and had suffered through a bout of tuberculosis.

Allow me to quantify his accomplishment for those of you without a degree in Construction Science.  One cubic foot of coral weighs 125 pounds.  Just one section of the wall around his castle is eight feet tall, four feet wide, and three feet thick which would make them about 12,000 pounds each.  Remember, the guy was consumptive.

So how did he do it?  That’s the best part.  No one knows.  As the story goes, he did it completely on his own and no one ever witnessed him work on it.

The Castle seems to be equal parts observatory and love letter to Ed’s Sweet Sixteen.  I found that one minute I was trying to get my head wrapped around the fact that the stones weren’t randomly positioned, two of them allowed Ed to track Polaris.  The next, I was looking at something like The Bedroom, the group of stones to the right.  Count them, three beds.  One for the husband, one for the wife, and one in the back for a baby.

If you do plan to visit the Coral Castle, I recommend doing a little background research on it first.  It takes up about an acre and it’s possible to run through it quickly without really looking at it and seeing some of the finer points.  If you watch some of this clip, you’ll see the stone that Mai is pushing.  We missed out on that “balance” thing they do in the clip*.  

*Note - I could not find the clip that I referenced in the original publication - Ed.

Monkey Jungle - Originally Published 2011

It’s good thing Animated Meat does not choose travel destinations based off the prejudices of others.  Take southern Florida, for example.  I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about it.  You know what?  If we listened to them, then we would have missed out on Monkey Jungle. 

What is Monkey Jungle?  According to the website, it’s where nearly 400 primates run free on a 30 acre preserve.  According to me, it’s enough reason to pack a back and head down to Florida for a visit.

Like the sign says, it’s a place where the humans are caged and the monkeys run wild.  And run wild they do.  Keep in mind that they don’t live in an aviary; there’s no top to their portion of the park.  If any of the residents is displeased, he can beat it out of there whenever he likes.

So what keeps the squadrons of monkey satiated enough to stay put and not run amok in Miami?  Raisins.  Lots and lots of raisins.  As Mai demonstrates in the above sequence, here is how a macaque trains a human.  First, there are metal cups throughout the park.  The visitor just needs to drop a few raisins inside.  The grateful monkey pulls the cup up, eats, and then drops the cup back down for the human to repeat the process.   You didn’t bring raisins with you?  That’s okay.  They’re for sale in the gift shop.

In addition, there are four shows that run continuously through the day.  One of the highlights is the feeding of the Java macaques, also known as crab-eating macaques.  These guys will gladly swim across the water for a hard boiled egg.

Monkey Jungle is also home to a couple great apes, both of which despite looking happy and well adjusted have sad stories.  First, there is the orangutan.  She is a hybrid, which means that when it comes to breeding, she is pretty far down the list.  Basically, scientists want to keep bloodlines “pure”.

And then there’s King.  Unlike an orangutan, a gorilla is a more social animal and in the wild can be found in family units.  King was rescued from a circus.  The shit heads at the circus saw fit to pull all of his front teeth, top and bottom.  This puts him in a vulnerable position and as a result can’t be part of a troop.

St. Augustine - Originally Published 2009

St. Augustine is the oldest permanent establishment in America.  What’s there to do there?  Well, there’s an old fort you can go and visit.

It’s coastal, so you can go walk around down by the marina.

Meat laying on the St. Augustine down in St. Augustine.

Ponce de Leon, constantly on.  The fountain of youth, not robotron.

This is the sight of an old slave market.  Really.  It’s part of America’s history, like it or not.

Don’t mess around in Florida.  They still use chain gangs down here.

Judgment day is on May 21st.  Better pencil it in.  It looks like this guy changed the date a few times.

There is also an old fort you can wander around in.

These old guys had a black powder musket demonstration.  The problem is, they talked for twenty minutes before they fired the damn thing.  We lost interest and wandered away.

But the real reason to go is this guy right here.  He plays two more instruments than Neil Young does.  Sorry for the short clip.  I was shooting on my point and click.

Kennedy Space Center - Originally Published 2009

Do you remember when you were a kid and there was that one rich kid who lived on your street?  I remember him.  He was kind of a turd, but I would go over his house anyway.  Why would I waste my precious time hanging out with a turd?  Because he had all of the best toys.  I suppose that makes me a turd as well.

He would sit in his room and tell me he was bored.  Bored?! How could he be bored?! Stacked in his closet were all the best games:  Ants in the Pants, Mr. Mouth, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Don’t Tip the Waiter.  “Let’s play a game,” I’d suggest.  “Nah, they’re all boring,” he’d retort.

Then, I’d go down the list.  “Let’s play Operation.”  “No.”  “Let’s play Trouble.” “No.”  “Let’s play Sorry.” “No.”  This would go on the better part of the afternoon.  Finally, I’d get frustrated and ride my Schwinn home.

Are you picking up what I’m putting down?  I think that we in America have become like that rich kid.  We have gotten really apathetic about the space program.  You doubt me?  Name our space shuttle.  Can you name an astronaut that has been part of a mission in the last ten years?

The space program is a victim of its own success.  I remember drinking Tang when I was a kid.  Why?  Because that’s the drink the astronauts took to the moon.  What do the astronauts drink in the International Space Station?  I don’t know.  I couldn’t tell you.

Keep in mind; it’s not for lack of nerdiness in America.  Look at the recent release of the iPad by Apple.  People are still discussing it.  All it is a really big iTouch.  My suggestion is that NASA needs to hire Apple’s PR team.  There are droves of uninformed nerds in America that are dying to get excited about something.  Pay the right team and connect with them, NASA.

Gatorland - Originally Published 2009

Long before Uncle Walt decided to make Central Florida home to the East Coast answer to Disneyland, Owen Godwin Sr. looked across the miles and mile of wetlands and saw opportunity.  This is where he would construct his dream.  And with that, Gatorland became the first tourist destination in Central Florida.

The park gets billed as Florida’s best half-day attraction.  I’m not arguing with this bold claim.  It’s a great place to spend a few hours and get more that your fill of alligators.

None of the pictures I took with the SLR on this trip came out.

The price of admission gets you into a couple of shows.  We took a look at the gator wrestling program as well as the gator feeding.  Something I learned, contrary to popular belief, if you are ever chased by a gator, you should run in a straight line, not zigzag.

For ten extra dollars, we got the chance to feed horsemeat to the alligators.  I didn’t even realize that was on my to-do list, but now I get to cross it off.  These are some well-fed alligators.  They actually seemed pretty docile when we threw them the meat.

While the name of the place is Gatorland, it could have just as easily been called Birdland.  There were just as many birds here as there were alligators.