Florida Before our Keys Adventure, Day 2...

We had two nights in Florida City. The plan was to find something in Miami to see. Once we got there, we really didn't want to tackle Miami. We found two things to do that didn't require Miami traffic. 

Saturday, February 15th, we first went to the Coral Castle. It is in Homestead, Florida just north of Florida City. It was right on Highway 1 just like our hotel. Cool. 

The story of the Coral Castle starts in the early 1900s in the Eastern European country of Latvia, where 26-year-old Edward Leedskalnin fell in love with 16-year-old Agnes Scuffs. They courted and eventually set a wedding date, but Agnes got cold feet the day before and called it off. Heartbroken, Leedskalnin immigrated to America, settling in Florida City, Florida. He then spent the rest of his life creating a monument to the woman he loved. Leedskalnin – who was only about 5 feet tall and 100 pounds – took three years to move the castle piece by piece from Florida City to Homestead by himself. 

The castle sits on three acres, and the structure itself, consisting of walls 8 feet tall, takes up just less an acre. It is divided into several sections, including a two-story stone tower where Leedskalnin lived (without running water or electricity). The cramped top floor was his living quarters. The bottom floor was a storage area for his cutting and shaping tools (blocks, tackles, crude winches and wedges – most of which he made himself), along with equipment for radiowave, physics and astronomy experiments. 

It helps to know that the rock under the ground here is ancient coral. If is deep and there is lots of it. Hence, Coral Castle. 

The two-story structure is his home. The top floor he lived in. The bottom was the workshop.

That is a rocking chair on top. At the base you can see a white area. In the second picture our guide is touching the white area. The third picture shows the lines on the white area. On the corner under the rocker is a piece of metal. When the sun hits the pointed piece of metal, its shadow lands on the white area somewhere in the lines. The lines mark hours and the exact time of day can be told by where the point of the shadow lands. 

A heart-shaped table.

This is the well for his fresh water and his bathing. 

This huge stone door actually rotates to open and close. He used automobile parts and things found in a junk yard. He would fit them to the stone so that when he set the stone in its place it would rotate. 

A wishing well. 

The obelisk at the back with the hole in the top is to tell the seasons. That hole actually had wire that divides it into quarters. In the next picture, Claude points to a hole in the wall. The third picture is the hole in the wall. When you look through that little hole at the big hole in the obelisk, you see one of the quadrants of that circle. That tells you what season it is. 

This is one of the quarries on the property used to get the stone to make the chairs and other items.

In the afternoon, we drove the southern highway through Everglades National Park to the community of Flamingo. Our entry fee to the park was free. Since we are officially OLD and since Claude served in the Air Force and carries the proof of that service in his wallet, we were given free access to the park. How cool is that?! In the park is an obsolete Nike Missile site. We did visit that. 

Time for dinner. Claude picked a place called Alabama Jacks. It is actually in Key Largo on Card Sound. We drove back across the tip of Florida to Alabama Jacks. Here we tried conch chowder and conch fritters. Conch was new to both of us. We enjoyed both dishes very much. 

Time to rest our weary heads. The next day would be the epic drive to Key West on the Ocean Highway.

Interesting Fact: They have 'bus ways' in the southern tip of Florida. Instead of rail tracks, there are roads for buses only to drive on. There are stations along the way that are covered over the two roads for you to catch your bus. It really operates like a train, except it is roads and buses. Cool.