Category: History

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Blogging Driving Food Geography History Travel

Avon Park Depot Museum

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. I’ve written about the historic Avon Park Depot Museum – operated by the Avon Park Historical Society – a few times here on my blog. It’s located about 4½ miles from my neighborhood on Main Street in downtown Avon Park Florida. I studied the place online during COVID, and I was very intrigued by its history. I decided that once I move to the area and retire from the USAF – I wanted to volunteer at the museum full-time.

My first visit to the museum was 5 years ago next week during a fun road-trip vacation through the area. I arrived at the museum. I took a couple of exterior photos. I walked-up to the front door, and it was locked shut with a note on the door. They were closed due to COVID.

What a disappointment. I immediately got back in my car and drove southward to downtown Sebring. That disappointment actually led me to my discovery of the Sebring Historical Society. My relationship with them began that morning, and it continues to this day. I’ll write about that – next #TravelThursday.

I’ve been visiting the Depot Museum in downtown Avon Park on a fairly regular basis over the past few years. Every time I visit – I wonder what could’ve been had they been open on that Wednesday in February in 2021. What would I be doing at that museum ? Would I be giving tours ? Would I be doing Accounting & Finance ? Would I be in charge of their Social Media and Internet presence ? Would the museum look any differently because of me ?

The museum is well run. My friend Elaine is the Museum Curator, and she frequently updates the museum with new displays – both temporary and permanent. It’s a very nice museum to visit set in a historic train depot, and the trains keep on rolling by. (They just don’t stop.)

On some days you may even be able to get a bonus exclusive behind-the-scenes tour inside this railroad dining car (acquired in 1986) that last saw action as part of Amtrak’s Auto Train between Lorton Virginia and Sanford Florida. It’s now used for special catered dining events by groups of 16 to 36 (by reservation only).

And I finally got to do just that this past December. A group of us from the Sebring Historical Society joined forces with another small group to meet the minimum of 16, and we enjoyed a very nice multi-course lunch on the train car. The food was delicious, and the service was wonderful (provided by volunteers of the Avon Park Historical Society). It was an excellent experience, and I suggested right then and there that we need to do this again next year (as in 2026). Several trains (passenger and freight) sped by us on the track as we were enjoying lunch – and also during our guided tour of the museum before lunch.

The museum is a traditional historical museum for the city of Avon Park. You can easily spend an hour or two checking it all out and allowing the docent(s) to share history with you. It’s currently open from 10 AM to 3 PM on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. It’s located at 3 North Museum Avenue – right after the first set of railroad tracks if you’re driving east on Main Street from U.S. 27. Make a left at Museum Avenue, and you’ll see the museum and the dining car on the left-hand side. Admission is free. Donations are appreciated.

Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2026 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

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Blogging Driving Food Geography History Holidays Home Movies Travel Weather

My Final Morning In The DFW

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. Last week I wrote about the start of my last full day in North Texas from November 26TH to December 06TH. (It was another movie and another lunch out for me and my brother.) We saw the movie in the longtime movie theatre building that we saw many movies from the Summer of 2007 to the Summer of 2013 – Cinemark Legacy in north Plano along U.S. 75. It’s been there since the late-1990s. My brother used to live in neighboring Allen, and that’s where we enjoyed our West Philly-style cheesesteak lunch after.

Fun Facts: Over 400,000 residents live in Plano and Allen combined. They are located about 25 miles NNE of Downtown Dallas – a straight shot down U.S. 75 (also known as the North Central Expressway). The frequently congested freeway was built in the 1950s and 1960s from south to north. It greatly contributed to suburban sprawl northeastward from Dallas into Collin County. About 1.3 million residents call Collin County home. In 1960 the population was a little over 41,000.

On that Friday December 05TH I spent much of the rest of the day packing and preparing for my return trip back home to Florida the next day.

My last morning was the start of yet another cold, cloudy, and foggy day in the #DFW. Hopefully incoming and outgoing flights wouldn’t be affected by the low ceiling. No need for me to worry about things I can’t control.

My brother went out early in the fog to his favorite local family-owned donut shop. (There are lots of them all around the area – most of them in strip shopping centers. They all seem to have a nondescript sign in front of their space that simply says “DONUT” or “DONUTS”.)

My brother got me a cronut and an apple fritter. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a cronut before, and my brother wanted me to try one. Mine was like an extra-thick honey-glazed donut, or two such donuts fried together as one. (It’s essentially a croissant-donut hybrid that’s made with croissant dough and then deep-fried like a donut.) I would eat another one if my brother got me another one on my next visit to Texas. The apple fritter is just a personal favorite pastry of mine.

After short hugs and goodbyes to my best canine friend, my two nieces, and my sister-in-law – me and my brother headed to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (#DFW). The fog continued the entire way, but it wasn’t too thick.

I checked-in at Terminal B. My checked suitcase was a few pounds heavier than it was 10 days earlier when I flew into Texas. (I think it was up to 36½ pounds.) TSA PreCheck was a bit weird. It had its own dedicated line, but it ended up at the exact same CT X-ray bag scanner line for everyone else. The TSA agent simply took turns with both lines asking the next person to step forward. So – it was weird, but I only had to wait an extra minute or two to place my carry-on bags in the bins to be scanned. I did receive a card that identified me as TSA PreCheck. I gave that card to the next agent, and I went through a dedicated body scanner.

I had to wait awhile on the other (secure) side, as the bag scanner was “hiccupping” as my bag was being scanned – as well as the bag ahead of mine (belonging to someone else). So – they had to pick-up those bags / bins and rescan them. All was good after that.

I headed to my gate after that, and then when the gate changed to a few gates away – I moved there too. (It actually changed from B18 to B17 to B14 to B11 in less than 2½ hours that morning.)

And then it changed to a completely different terminal (D) just 38 minutes before boarding would begin. That annoyed those of us who were sitting comfortably at Gate B11 – including a pilot. Now we had to walk fast to pick-up the Skylink to reach the new terminal and gate. I’ll let you know how that went – next #TravelThursday. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2026 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

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Blogging Driving Food Geography History Holidays Home Movies Travel Weather

Coffee & Food

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. Last week I wrote about me and my brother’s fun visit to the historic (built in 1905) “Thomas And Mattie Brown House Welcome Center” (known more commonly as “Welcome Center At Brown House”). I’ll continue to follow them on their Facebook page, and it’ll be a regular visit (I hope) every time I visit my family in Wylie Texas. After all – it’s the official Welcome Center for the city of Wylie. It also sounds like they rotate and swap out displays on a regular basis, so it’ll be fun to see what’s different with each new visit.

It’s on Ballard Avenue in the historic downtown district. Another regular visit along Ballard is Ballard Street Cafe – a popular one-location family-owned restaurant that serves breakfast and lunch from 6 AM to 2 PM every day (7 AM to 2 PM on Sundays). It’s really good food. Somehow – someway – we didn’t make it there for breakfast like we usually do. That’s high on the docket for my next visit to Wylie.

We did make it to Shoemaker & Hardt – or – as my brother and I have referred to it for the past 6 years now – “Hardcastle & McCormick”. It’s also on Ballard, and it’s a hybrid gourmet coffee shop and gift shop that’s been open for almost 30 years. I always walk around looking at the various items for sale as I await the creation of my delicious hot (or iced) beverage. It smells really good in there with a hybrid of coffee and candles.

Thursday December 04TH 2025 – the same day that this current #TravelThursday series from Texas began – was a mostly stay-at-home day. It was also another cold, dark, dreary, and drizzly day in the low-40s. Me and my brother went out during the lunch hour, and we made two stops.

The first stop was to Dutch Bros. It’s a drive-thru coffee chain that was born in Oregon in 1992. It’s approaching 1,100 locations nationwide with a goal of 4,000 locations soon. (Sebring is one of the potential new locations as suggested by a recent Facebook post. It would be located almost directly across the street from our existing Starbucks and Panera.)

After that we went back to Cotton Patch Cafe (which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago). This time me and my brother each selected a dessert from their menu, and my brother ordered them in advance via their web site. I selected the Bread Pudding (classic southern style, cinnamon custard, caramel drizzle). My brother ordered the Mama’s Special Butter Cake (butter cake with a cheesecake layer, whipped cream, caramel sauce). My brother picked them up at the special pick-up entrance. We took our desserts home, and we enjoyed them with our fancy coffees.

Later that same night my sister-in-law cooked dinner for us – baked steak (one of her specialties) and mashed potatoes with gravy. And of course the gravy is also for the baked steak.

T.G.I.F. It’s my last full day in North Texas. After another movie (our 4TH in a week) – me and my brother ate more delicious food. For lunch we went to Big Tony’s West Philly Cheesesteaks in Allen Texas. The guy running the restaurant at the time got my order mixed up with the guy who ordered right after me. I think we ordered the same daily special (double-meat cheesesteak with fries), but I ordered mine with no onions, and the other guy ordered his with onions. He got no onions. I got all the onions. But it actually wasn’t that bad, and I ate most of the onions. (It would’ve been tastier minus the onions.)

On the next #TravelThursday – I eat a cronut, an apple fritter, two pop-tarts, two cookies, a small bag of pretzels, and two more pop-tarts as I make my way back home to Sebring Florida. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2026 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

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Blogging Driving Food Geography History Holidays Home Travel

The Brown House

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. On Wednesday December 03RD 2025 me and my brother started our day at a popular deli in Far North Dallas – Deli-News. We’ve been there many times for lunch over the past 18 years. It’s actually located within a few miles of my brother’s first workplace in the Dallas Texas area – as well as his first home with his new wife at the time. I got the “New York Diner Classic” – “mounds of thinly sliced roast beef and topped with our special brown gravy and served open faced”. It was very good, and it should’ve been very good at $21.99. It was definitely high-quality roast beef. It came with a side. I chose their Potato Salad.

But that’s not what this post is about. After lunch we returned to Wylie Texas – specifically the historic downtown district along Ballard Avenue. We visited the “Thomas And Mattie Brown House Welcome Center” (known more commonly as “Welcome Center At Brown House”). It’s a historic Queen Anne Victorian house (built in 1905) that houses a museum, gift shop, and offices. It also serves as the official welcome center for the city of Wylie Texas. They are open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 11 AM to 5 PM from November to March with extended hours from April to October. Admission is free.

The city of Wylie owns and operates the museum with part-time paid employees. Unlike our museum back home in Sebring Florida where we encourage (and hope for) financial support from visitors, members, and businesses – the museum in Wylie has its own allocated budget and can’t accept donations. But if you want to support them then you can buy something at their gift shop. All gift shop proceeds support the 501(c)(3) Wylie Historical Society non-profit organization.

Upon arrival – I immediately signed their guest book, and I also quickly revealed that I am also in the museum business. We got a nice tour of the museum – which occupies much of the bottom floor. (The top floor is for staff only.)

A dozen uniquely themed Christmas trees covered nearly every corner of the museum. I especially liked the patriotic tree that will likely stay in place as is until America’s 250TH birthday less than 6 months from now. I remarked to Tracy – a Guest Service Specialist at the museum – that I need to return on my next visit to Wylie in the summertime to check out what it looks like without all of the Christmas trees. Me and my brother had a very nice conversation with Tracy – maybe half of it as a visitor – and the other half of it as a fellow museum worker. I walked away with some great ideas (and dreams) for my own historic house museum back home.

Fun Facts: The Brown House was a private residence from 1905 to 1988. It was purchased by a local trust fund in 1989 to use as office space and create a library and historical museum. Their mission was to restore the house to the way it originally looked in 1905. Over a half-million dollars was spent to restore the house. The City Of Wylie purchased the house from the Trust in 2015. It was initially used for event rentals and special events. After several years of weather-related repairs (due to hail, snow, and ice storms) – it officially became the Welcome Center and Museum in August 2022.

On the next #TravelThursday – coffee, coffee, dessert, movie, cheesesteak, and cronuts. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2026 Christopher M. Day, CountUp