Category: Photography

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Blogging Driving Geography History Nature Photography Travel

Florida’s Nature Coast

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. On Day 1 of my ongoing retirement road-trip to and from North Texas I departed my home in the Heartland of Florida at dawn. I proceeded northward on U.S. 27 / U.S. 98, and I continued up U.S. 27 to Lake Wales, and then westward along State Road 60. I picked-up U.S. 98 again through Bartow, Lakeland, and points north and west.

My first stop on this road-trip was Weeki Wachee Springs State Park – the legendary roadside attraction that has brought millions of people through its front gates off U.S. 19 for the past 77 years. During its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s it was one of the most popular tourist attractions in Florida (along with Silver Springs and Cypress Gardens). Everyone wanted to not just catch a glimpse of the mermaids, but also see them in action, and meet them in person, and have their picture taken with them before and after the shows. I saw the mermaids perform Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” for their regularly-scheduled 11 AM show in the Underwater Theater.

Weeki Wachi Springs became a Florida State Park on November 01ST 2008. (The state now owns and operates it.) It was added to the U.S. National Register Of Historic Places in January 2020. It appears to be doing great business, and on some days – they reach capacity and can no longer let additional people into the park. On this particular day (a Monday) the park was thriving with hundreds of kids and their parents. Buccaneer Bay – the on-site water park – is also a main attraction. Personally – I thought that the park was underwhelming. I don’t do water parks, and aside from the 30-minute mermaid show (which was fun for all ages) – there was not much else to see or do at the park. Remnants of the park (from when it was independently owned – including by ABC-TV) still exist, and it’s a sad reminder of what the park once was all of those years ago.

I visited two other Florida State Parks on that Monday – Crystal River Archeological State Park and Forest Capital Museum State Park (near Perry). Both were pleasant surprises and much nicer than I anticipated. The former – with its traditional museum inside and its collection of Native American mounds outside – was nothing short of spectacular – especially the scenery from atop one of the mounds.

Crystal River (flowing from left to right towards the Gulf Of Mexico)

Fun Facts: All 3 of these Florida State Parks are located along the Nature Coast – a region of 8 mostly rural counties located directly on the Gulf Coast from the Big Bend region southward to north of the Tampa Bay region.

I love Florida’s Nature Coast. I love driving along scenic U.S. 19 / U.S. 98 and seeing historic motor inns and restaurants along the way – some of which are still in business with modern amenities. (Others are long dormant and rotting in place.) There’s so much to see and do in this area, and I’m just getting started.

Next #TravelThursday – It’s on to Mobile Alabama to explore more history by land and by sea. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2024 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

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Blogging Driving Food Geography History Nature Photography Travel

Sugar Express

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. This past Sunday afternoon I took a fun 2-hour / 46-mile train ride aboard the Sugar Express. It was my first such train ride here in the U.S. in my lifetime. I didn’t really know what to expect with it until it actually occurred.

I picked-up the train at the Highlands County Fairgrounds adjacent to the Alan Jay Arena across from Sebring High School near downtown Sebring Florida. U.S. Sugar actually owns and operates the railroad track that runs adjacent to the Fairgrounds, and we stayed exclusively on their railroad track (also known as the “South Central Florida Express“) for all 23 miles southward and then back northward.

Passengers were already aboard the train over an hour before our 2 PM departure. (I got there early too – surprised that so many others got there even earlier than I.)

The train departed on-time at 2 PM, and we began our slow southward trek towards south of Lake Placid. One of the most surprising things that occurred throughout much of the trip were people (I believe mostly locals who know the train schedule) getting out of their vehicles and taking pictures and recording our train as it passed by. (Lots of tripods were setup.) This occurred at street crossings and adjacent to neighborhoods and businesses where people came out of homes and stores to record us and wave at us. (And many of us waved back.) The scenery was beautiful on a sunny Sunday afternoon – from natural unspoiled Florida scrub to abundant orange groves to sandy hills to picturesque lakes around Lake Placid. It was interesting to see such a diverse and different part of my hometown county that I never see while driving 55 to 65 MPH along U.S. 27.

We arrived in the area south of Lake Placid known as Childs. It’s a sugarcane loading site between train and truck for U.S. Sugar. The train came to a stop for a moment, tested its brakes, and then began slowly moving back northward for the return trek to Sebring.

This was a fun ride. Customer service all around was outstanding. They actually made two trips back and forth through the passenger cars with complimentary bags of chips and cookies – far more than you get on a standard airplane in coach. You also get unlimited Zephyrhills bottled water out of a well-stocked cooler. They even pick-up your trash after you’re done. You’re able to walk through all of the passenger cars at your leisure – even while the train is moving. They sell souvenirs in one of the cars. The top speed of the trip was just shy of 40 MPH (outside of both Sebring and Lake Placid); although, for much of the trip it averaged from 15 to 30 MPH. The ride was mostly smooth except when it reached top speed when it got a little bit “jerky”. It’s got a nostalgic feel to it with original passenger cars from the 1950s, and continuous big band music from the 1940s playing throughout the sound system.

Next #TravelThursday – I’ll look back at the cloudy and dreary and rainy and chilly El Niño Winter of 2023-2024 here in the Heartland of Florida. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2024 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

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Blogging Geography Photography Travel

My Flickr Photostream

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. You know – I’m still on Flickr. I’ve never created an Instagram account. I don’t even know what Instagram looks like. I tried Google Photos for a little while, and I realized that it was too complicated to use, and it’s inferior to Flickr. It was disappointing since I use Google (the search engine) all day every day.

Flickr has been around for 19 years, and I’ve been on it for the past dozen years. I like Flickr. It’s easy to use. It’s relatively glitch-free. I have unlimited storage as a paid Flickr Pro member. I’m approaching 4,000 photos on it. I’ll be on it for as long as they exist.

My goal is to upload and caption at least 10 new photos per month onto Flickr. I’ve done that for the past 53 months in a row – since the end of 2018. I’ve been asked – “why don’t you just do a photo dump of all of your photos all at once and be done with it ?” Well that would be no fun at all. Flickr is my personal electronic scrapbook, so each new photo is meticulously selected, uploaded, researched, captioned, and placed in its appropriate album. I have 65 albums – most of which are public.

This month I’ll be populating my Puerto Rico album. I was in Old San Juan on January 11TH 2023, and I have some very nice photos to share of that wonderful day – courtesy of Carnival Celebration. On the previous day I was in Amber Cove, Puerto Plata, and the surrounding north-central coast region of Dominican Republic. I uploaded 34 photos from that day in February, March, and April. I actually took 81 photos that day, so only about 42% of them made it onto Flickr. I call them – the best of the best. (Check-out my Dominican Republic album.)

I’m not a professional photographer, but it is a hobby of mine when I’m visiting the world. It’s a relatively new hobby of mine since the start of the smart phone revolution – and Flickr. One of my biggest regrets in life is the lack of photos of my travels before I owned a smart phone.

If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of this page you can see thumbnails of the last 6 added photos to my Flickr Photostream. It’s a good way to keep-up with what I’ve uploaded and captioned onto my favorite photo hosting service.

Next #TravelThursday I’ll head-up to Orange County Florida. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

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Blogging Driving Geography Military Photography Travel

My Carnival Celebration Vacation 2023

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. Last week I wrote about Amber Cove, Puerto Plata, and the surrounding area up to 2,600 feet above sea level along the north-central coast of the Dominican Republic. That was Day 3 of my 7-day cruise aboard the Carnival Celebration from Sunday January 08TH 2023 to Sunday January 15TH 2023.

This week we jump to Day 4 of my 7-day cruise – and the 2ND port-of-call in San Juan Puerto Rico.

But First: It’s always good to return back to the U.S.A. – whether it’s stateside or a territory at sea – if only to get full-use of my cell phone (iPhone) back again without any extra International “roaming” charges. Those LTE signal bars look so beautiful after not having any since a few miles offshore Miami Beach.

I pre-purchased a shore excursion for Old San Juan – visiting fortresses. Shortly after arrival and U.S. Customs clearance on the island, I met my group and we hopped on our bus. Our tour guide / driver narrated during our short drive up to the first fortress. She also exhibited a little bit of Puerto Rican road-rage along the way, as traffic was thick and slow due to several cruise ships in port. Cops were blocking roads in an effort to make traffic run more smoothly, but it seemed to be causing more problems than not.

We made it to Castillo San Cristóbal, and our tour guide /driver handed-off to another tour guide who told us a little bit about the fortress. Then she told us to go check it out for ourselves and return back to the bus about 40 minutes later. (This was very unlike the shore excursion that I enjoyed on the previous day in the Dominican Republic as described last #TravelThursday.)

Our next fortress was Castillo San Felipe del Morro, and it was essentially the same situation. Our tour guide told us a little bit about it, and then we went to check it out on our own. After we were done – we walked back on our own to the bus to be there at a certain time.

After the two fortresses our tour guide / driver drove us to the city center of Viejo San Juan, and that was pretty much the end of the tour. She recommended that we walk back to the ship from there (a short walk), as traffic was muy malo. (She essentially gave up for the day.)

While the shore excursion for the Dominican Republic was a perfect 5 stars because of our tour guide and what we saw – this shore excursion was more like 3 stars. It wasn’t really a waste of time or money, but we could’ve had better, more knowledgeable, and more patient tour guides with less attitude. We could’ve also had cold air coming out of the bus vents instead of air.

I took some good pictures from the fortresses. They will appear on my Flickr Photostream in the weeks to come. Here’s one of the 3 cruise ships in port at the time from atop Castillo San Cristóbal. (The Carnival Celebration is in the middle.)

Fun Fact: This was my 2ND-ever visit to San Juan Puerto Rico. My 1ST visit was a little over 12 years ago on January 20TH 2011 as part of a 7-day cruise on the Carnival Glory.

Next #TravelThursday we’ll head over to Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands to enjoy a fun day on a nearly empty ship, or – perhaps – it didn’t quite turn out that way. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp