Lake Wales, FL – Sep 2021

Lucy … I’m Home!  (younger folks will not get that reference).  This beautiful image was taken recently by a resident of my home base community Saddlebag Lake (by Janet Edwards-Tomaselli), catching a beautiful double rainbow running across the lake from the vantage point of the Memorial Garden.  Safe to say, I’m back home in paradise.  I had a terrific, uneventful three week travel, with stops in NC, SC, and northern FL.  I did a bunch of Roadside America stops, and even captured a few geocaches along the way. I had a wonderful time in MD for the summer, and thoroughly enjoyed spending time with the girls and grands, and catching up with friends and family.  At the same time, it’s wonderful to be home.  I’ll be here for the winter, hoping to plan and ultimately execute a re-launch of my travels back out west come next spring.  We’ll just have to wait and see how things go between now and then.

Nice Campgrounds

I certainly gotta say, I sure can pick them!  I landed an amazing waterfront site in NC (top picture at left was my view from the dining table window), a large easy in easy out pull thru in SC, and a beautiful deluxe patio site at a KOA in northern FL.  So all in all, my one-week stays at each of these three campgrounds was certainly a step up from the marginal at best place I had spent the prior four months.  It was nice being in a bit of luxury again.  As you will see below, each of these locations also offered lots of opportunities to check off some interesting Roadside America visits.  In fact, I was able to contribute several photos to the Roadside app to fill in where there were no photos, or to augment ones of limited quality.  So, that was a win also.  And for the record, the truck performed wonderfully – no issues or hiccups.  That was certainly a relief and I’m very hopeful things will stay that way!

Roadside America

Wow, when I went back through the places I visited, and assembled the pictures I had taken, I was amazed at how much I had seen in the three week trip heading south.  It was a wonderful reminder of how much fun it is to be on the road traveling and visiting the bounty of places there are to see in this country.  I sure hope I can reasonably get back on the road next spring and pick up where I left off.  There’s just too much out there to see to be wasting time being stuck in a pandemic.

One of the first places I visited while in Selma, NC was the Ava Gardner museum located in Smithfield, NC.  Ava was born on Christmas Eve in 1922, graduated high school in 1939 and went on to attend Atlantic Christian College.  While visiting her sister Bappie in New York, Bappie’s husband Larry, a professional photographer, took a series of photos of young Ava, some of which were placed in the window of his 5th avenue shop.  An errand boy with ties to MGM noticed the pictures and mentioned she had a face for movies and tried to get her phone number for a date.  The date hopes did not pan out, but it did give Larry the idea that perhaps Ava had something.  So, he printed up several of the pictures and sent them to MGM.  Soon thereafter, Ava was called in for a screen test and in 1941 at the age of 18, signed 7-year movie contract with MGM Studios for $50 per week.  She would appear in over 70 films during her career, with Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations.  She was married three times – briefly to film star Mickey Rooney, followed briefly to jazz musician and bandleader Artie Shaw.  Her third and final marriage was to the famous singer/actor Frank Sinatra.  That too did not last long, and Ava would remain unhitched for the remainder of her life.  Just a couple miles down the road from the museum was the cemetery and final resting place for Ava, her parents, and many of her siblings.  That was an interesting visit as well.  While at the museum, I was told a story by the docent of the tragic accidental death of Ava’s brother Raymond.  Ava’s father was a farmer in his early years, and as was common back then, he would occasionally use dynamite to blast rocks from areas he wanted to crop.  One day, a neighbor had come by to borrow some blasting caps, and one was accidentally and unknowingly dropped onto the floor of their home.  Later in the morning while he was out tending to the farm, his wife, Ava’s mom, was sweeping up the floor while young baby Raymond was nearby playing.  She inadvertently swept the errant blasting cap into the roaring fireplace, causing it to explode sending shards of metal and wood that would strike and kill the young boy.  Such a sad story and tragic event that ended the life of the young 3 year old lad.  He has a delightful childish statue at his graveside (pictured right, lower right).

Next stop was Walterboro, SC.  30 miles away is Beaufort, SC – home to the Kazoo museum and factory.  They have been manufacturing plastic Kazoos since 1999, with operations at their current location since 2010.  The museum houses over 200 pieces of Kazoo related items and is one of the largest private Kazoo collections in the world.  The collection includes one used in the TV show Partridge Family, Kazoos shaped like famous cartoon characters, electric Kazoos, and Kazoos that are over 100 years old.  The Kazoos are technically assembled, not manufactured at this location.  The plastic components are injection molded in an area around Tampa, and assembled, stamped, and packaged here at this facility.  Interesting fact:  The first Kazoo made was called a Deep South Submarine.  No one actually knows when or how the name Kazoo came about.  The tour includes a short film, demonstrations of different Kazoos and whistles, a tour of facility, then an opportunity to build your own Kazoo.  I of course purchased three Kazoos – one for each of my grandkids.  In fact, I got the extra special loud ones known as a Wazoo with the extended horn for maximum enjoyment for the kids, and likely maximum annoyance by the parents.  Gotta love pay backs!

Also nearby was the Walterboro Army Airfield.  The airfield opened in Aug of 1942 and was the largest sub-base in the 3rd Air Force.  It served as a final training base for pilots prior to overseas duty.  It was also a POW camp housing hundreds of German POWs.  Of special interest, Tuskegee Airman were trained here prior to being sent overseas.  A nice commemorative park has been created next to the still operational but now private airfield.

Now onward to Starke, FL – final stop before getting back to home base.  Lots of interesting Roadside items to see in this area.  First up, several artsy items to include a Brahman Bull that sits outside guarding a local restaurant (getting weathered and need of some upkeep), a giant orange golf ball pretending to be a citrus sitting outside a roadside produce stand, and a purple rooster that adorns the outside of a fireworks store.  Cause nothing makes you think of fireworks more than a purple rooster!  Lastly, in nearby Green Cove Springs, FL is the only known survivor of the space shuttle program.  This external fuel tank, built in 1977 and still residing on its orginal transporter, was used for loading and stress analysis tests.  Those used in actual flight burned up on re-entry – hence few if any are known to remain.  I parked my big boy truck in front of it to give you a perspective of just how big this thing is – truly BIG!

I also got to visit the supposedly first atheist monument allowed on government property in the US.  This granite bench and small pillar inscribed with pro-atheist sentiments stands in front of the Bradford County courthouse in its “free speech zone” next to a monument of the Ten Commandments.  The pillar is inscribed with atheistic quotes from Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin, and a list of Old Testament punishments – including death and stoning – for breaking the Ten Commandments.  This monument was unveiled in 2013 and was a settlement for a lawsuit to challenge the presence of the Commandments.  Equal speech was the decision so here it is. 

Next up was a visit to Camp Blanding which has an outdoor static display of various military vehicles, and an indoor museum reflective its role in WW II.  Now a joint forces (Army & Air Force) reserve training facility, this place once trained national guard and reservist troops from several locations along the east coast.  It also housed an extensive POW camp (model of the camp shown at left – center).  This was an interesting place as I never really thought about us having housed POWs here in the US.  As POW camps in Europe and the UK became overcrowded, German POWs would be sent to the US on otherwise empty troop transports returning from having dropped off soldiers in those areas.  Interestingly, while many of the POWs were repatriated back to their home country, some actually chose to remain here in the US to live out the remainder of their lives.  A really interesting place.

Last up was a visit to a couple other interesting places.  First up was Penney Farms – a planned utopian agricultural center.  In the 1920, James Cash Penney, aka JC Penney, purchased 150,000 acres of northeast Florida land and created Penney Farms.  He was an extremely wealthy man having started and grown the JC Penney retail store chain, and with money to burn, he purchased this land.  A devout Christian, he also established a nearby small retirement home for retired ministers.  The utopia failed and Penney lost most of his fortune in the Florida land crash of the 1920s and the Great Depression of the 1930s.  But the retired ministers home survived, and grew into a Christian retirement community today.  The town of Penney Farms held on as well, although the retirement community now rivals it in population.  This $50,000 bronze status of JC Penney sits in front of Penney Farms Town Hall.  Last up was a visit to the 1894 Green Cove Springs County Jail.  A surprising number of violent criminals, including a least one ax murderer, ended up in this small supposedly haunted jail.  There’s even a dummy prisoner hanging by his fingers outside of the barred windows.  Despite the signage that said otherwise, sadly the jail was closed and I was not able to tour the inside to get more info.  So, I’ll have to make a return visit sometime in the future.

Final Thoughts

Though I’ve only been back to Lake Wales for just under a week, I’ve already been to a farmers market, walked through an electric vehicle car show, attended a play at the Lake Wales Little Theater, and visited a great downtown restaurant that had just opened up a few weeks after I left last spring.  I’m looking forward to attending many festivals and other events slated for the winter, and hopeful that the Saddlebag community will resume some level of socialization this year.  I’d love to participate in some pot luck dinners, meet other residents via various clubs, and have some gatherings out at the fire pit – all without the threat of catching the stupid virus.  I also look forward to re-making a series of campground reservations out west to pick up where I left off in the fall of 2020.  I’m hopeful I can resume my westerly travels and filling this blog with interesting travel tidbits along the way.  For now, I’ll keep you updated with things happening here in Lake Wales over the course of this winter.  At least I’ll be warm and surrounded by lots of family I can visit throughout this time.  Till next edition, be well and safe travels.

I only show a sampling of my adventure pictures here in the blog, and do so mostly in collage format for brevity and ease of reading. If you want to view an album containing individual full fidelity and hi-res images of all my travel pictures related to this specific blog, click the image below. Enjoy!