Category: History

Arcadia Florida

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date March 13, 2025

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. I finally made it to Arcadia Florida last Thursday. I left home – up in the Poconos of Florida – (more on that in a future edition) – and I arrived 43 miles and less than hour later in the historic district known formally as “Arcadia Main Street“.

I parked my car in one of their many public parking lots, and I walked a block down Hickory Street (Florida State Road 70 westbound) through lots of road construction over to residential Monroe Avenue – straight to the John Morgan Ingraham House Museum of the DeSoto County Historical Society.

I greeted the docent on duty – Kathy Bryce – and then she greeted me. She gave me a nice guided tour of the historic “Florida Cracker” house from the late-19TH Century. John Morgan Ingraham – a Florida Congressman – lived in the house from 1919 to 1980. (He lived 97 years.) The house is included on a 3,400-acre parcel of land that is on the National Register Of Historic Places.

The house includes original equipment, furniture, and artifacts. Nearly everything is identified and labeled uniformly. I took-in many mental notes during my walk-through. I also met and enjoyed a brief conversation with one of their Directors – Carol Mahler. She knew a few of our leaders at the Sebring Historical Society. I left their Museum with lots of great ideas for our own similar historic house Museum.

They are open 6 or 7 days a month on Thursdays and the 2ND & 4TH Saturdays of the month from 9 AM to 1 PM. They close for 3 months each Summer. I hope to visit the Museum again before they close for the Summer to walk around on my own and talk more with Kathy and Carol. They are doing a lot of good things over there with lots of events. I’m looking forward to hearing more about them. They are preparing for their upcoming annual celebration known as “Pioneer Day”.

After my visit to the Museum I walked over to The Yellow Deli to enjoy an early Lunch. Their official web site lists 33 locations worldwide in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Their Arcadia location is one of the highest-rated online in the city. Several reviewers stated that they enjoyed “the best Reuben ever”. Since the Reuben is one of my favorite sandwiches I decided to give it a try. It was good, but not the greatest ever. I prefer my Reuben to be between well-toasted rye bread. The bread was not toasted at all, but surprisingly it wasn’t too soggy. I’d actually order it again. It came with potato chips and a nice-sized dill pickle.

Time to walk off my Lunch, but I think I’ll continue my Arcadia Main Street adventure – next – #TravelThursday. Let’s keep traveling together.

Tags Arcadia, Florida

Blogging Driving Geography History Holidays Travel

Arcadia Florida

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date February 13, 2025

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. Last week I stated that I was spending the day visiting Arcadia Florida for the first time ever, and that I would write about it this week. That didn’t happen, as I got sick with the 3-day flu on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. My daytrip to Arcadia has been postponed to Thursday February 27TH 2025. That gives me a little more time to plan it all out. I plan to park my car and walk and browse the entire historic downtown district. I’ve already got my map of the area downloaded.

Arcadia is one of the oldest incorporated cities in the region. It became a city in 1886. A year later with the creation of DeSoto County (carved out of Manatee County) – Arcadia became the County Seat. DeSoto County was named after explorer Hernando de Soto. Arcadia was named after 25-year-old Arcadia Albritton. She was the daughter of local pioneers Thomas and Fannie Albritton.

Footnote: It’s the start of Presidents’ Day Weekend here in the U.S.A. – the unofficial start of Spring Break here in Florida – starting with the week leading-up to the Daytona 500. It’s historically been a big Florida travel weekend for me. For the 2ND year in a row – I’m staying put, as I’m already living in paradise. This weekend in 2023 – I bought my dream home in my dream neighborhood. In 2021 I visited this area. In 2017 I drove through this area en route to and from the Florida Panhandle. In 2016 I drove through this area en route to Walt Disney World. And in 2015 it was my first recorded visit to this area. I took photos of many of the murals all around downtown Lake Placid.

15 years ago I was in the Panama Canal. I’ll look back at that – next #TravelThursday. Let’s keep traveling together.

Tags Arcadia, Florida

Blogging Driving Geography History Music Travel

South Florida State College Arts

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date February 6, 2025

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. It occurred to me today (as I’m writing this) that I’m coming up on 32 years of online activity here in Florida. It all started in a cozy studio efficiency apartment in Melbourne Florida during the Spring of 1993. Back then I was posting on a friend’s BBS (bulletin board system) before I created my very own – “MANx CAT BBS” (named after my childhood cat). It was a lot of fun back then, and perhaps the only subject that I posted about then – that I’m still posting about now – is travel. Back then I posted in “Fluffy’s Travel Bureau”. Today – it’s the simpler-named #TravelThursday.

Last Thursday I headed a couple of miles up the road to the Avon Park campus of South Florida State College (#SFSC).

My first stop was their Museum of Florida Art And Culture. It was my second visit to the museum. It’s a small museum – perhaps about one-third historical and two-thirds art gallery. They feature temporary exhibits throughout the year, and they had one this time titled “Echoes Unveiled” by Katya Neptune. It’s portraits of women and children that Neptune captured in Rwanda Africa in 2012 and 2014. The art pieces include matte medium, watercolor, polyurethane, thread, pencil, markers, and yarn on paper and fabric to embellish the large-scale photo-transfers.

There was actually a second temporary art exhibit adjacent to the museum inside the lobby of the concert venue. It was titled “Whiskers And Tales” by local 92-year-old resident Mary Seigfreid. It’s an exhibit on fluffy cats. And that brings this post full circle. (I saw a cat in her exhibit that kind of sort of looked like Fluffy from 35 years ago.)

Inside the concert venue – formally known as the Alan Jay Wildstein Center For The Performing Arts – I attended a free afternoon / matinee concert with the Charlie Redd Band LIVE. The 4-piece band (lead singer, guitarist, keyboardist, drummer) was very good. They performed mostly ’60s and ’70s pop classics – nearly all of which I knew and sang along with. Their encore was “Sweet Caroline” (Neil Diamond), and that was a lot of fun. They performed over 20 songs in 100 minutes.

It’s great to have #SFSC so close by so that I can enjoy LIVE concerts, and history and art in the same building.

Today I’m spending the day visiting Arcadia Florida for the first time ever. I’ll write about it – next #TravelThursday – Let’s keep traveling together.

Tags Avon Park, Florida, SFSC

Blogging Driving Food Geography History Travel

Travel & Weather Together

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date January 30, 2025

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. It’s a fun post today – probably more fun than educational or informative. I hope to get out around the region and explore some of our museums and historical attractions in the coming weeks and months so that I can write about them here.

For this post I’ll write about the local traffic and weather here in Sebring over the past few months. Let’s start with traffic. Firstly – I lived in Miami-Dade County in South Florida for 36+ years, and before that – I lived in the Washington D.C. area for 16+ years. Aside from 2 years of living in Southern England (rural Gloucestershire) in the mid-1980s – traffic here is the most reasonable (and lightest) of my entire life. Sure – we have issues. With no Interstates, Expressways, Turnpikes, etc. anywhere near here – U.S. 27 is our main thoroughfare. My neighborhood’s front entrance is directly off U.S. 27. It’s a local commercial road. It’s a regional road. It’s a major continental highway that runs over 1,350 miles from northeastern Indiana (historically Michigan) to Miami Florida.

On the local Facebook pages the “accident of the day” is posted – complete with scary photos from different angles. All of the usual keyboard warriors immediately fire up their fingers and post the same diatribes about how growth is out-of-control in Sebring, there are no police in sight until after-the-fact, people are texting on their cell phones instead of paying attention to driving so they are running stop signs, red lights, swerving, and speeding, and of course the old standby – the snowbirds visiting from up north are driving too slow and causing all of the accidents. Apparently – everyone is causing the accidents except for the ones on Facebook. (I always head straight for the comments.)

Google defines snowbird as – “a northerner who moves to a warmer southern state in the winter.”

The fact of the matter is that some of those things are true, and others are just plain nonsense. Locals (year-rounders) cause most of the accidents here – not snowbirds. Even in the summertime when the snowbird population is near zero and traffic volume is half (or less) of what it is during the wintertime – we still have the “accident of the day” posted on Facebook.

So YES – traffic on U.S. 27 can be tricky and trying at times, but it is no U.S. 1 in South Florida.

Fun Facts: The southern terminus of U.S. 27 is at U.S. 1 in Midtown Miami Florida. If there were mile marker posts along U.S. 27 – then Mile Marker 168 would appear very near the front entrance of my neighborhood.

As far as weather is concerned – we definitely participated in winter this season (again). Last season (strong El Niño) was mostly cloudy, rainy, and chilly, and this season (weak La Niña) was mostly clear, sunny, and chilly. Historical record-breaking snow fell across most of the Florida Panhandle – up to 10 inches in spots – during a rare January 20TH-21ST Gulf Coast snowstorm from Texas to Florida. Here in Sebring – we experienced an extended cold light rain in the low-to-mid-40s during the event. We were actually stuck in the 40s for 46 continuous hours ! (Tampa was stuck in the 40s for 70 hours in a row !)

Our lowest average high temperature of the entire year is slightly above 70°F (21°C), and our lowest average low temperature of the entire year is slightly above 50°F (10°C). So – a below-average (cool) day is a high below 70° and / or a low below 50°. We’ve experienced 41 cool days so far this winter (since the latter part of November). That’s 19 days when we didn’t reach 70°F, and 39 nights when we dropped below 50°F. (Last winter season we experienced 38 nights below 50°F, so we’ve already surpassed that number.)

Weather statistics are courtesy of the National Weather Service for Sebring Regional Airport (adjacent to Sebring International Raceway) – which sits at an unusual location and elevation in that it is off of the Lake Wales Ridge. It is anywhere from 60 to 120 feet below the elevation of where most of the people live here in the local area. As a result – the airport is occasionally warmer than most of the area, or cooler than most of the area depending on local weather conditions at the time.

Later today – I’m headed a couple of miles up the road to the Avon Park campus of South Florida State College to enjoy a music concert. I also plan to check out the adjacent Museum of Florida Art And Culture. I’ll write about it – next #TravelThursday. Let’s keep traveling together.