The Boy the Monkey and Batman

I was updating my Facebook status today while I was making my way home.  My first mode of transportation was the car.  My Dad took me to my first stop, the bus.  I took a photo of the bus when it arrived and updated my status - I'm on the bus!

Then a few hours later when I transfered from the bus to the train, I took a quick shot of some folks getting on the train and updated my status - I'm getting on the train!

Then an hour or two later I witnessed something interesting.

A young kid sitting across the aisle from me asked the train conductor when the next "smoke break" was coming up.  The conductor said that it would be about 15 minutes.  The kid then picked up his bag and walked down the aisle.  It was then that I saw it...

The boy was putting on his Batman backpack and the head of a stuffed animal, a monkey, was peeking out the top.  It was kind of sad and kind of sweet all at the same time.  I imagined all sorts of scenarios for the reason he was on the train.  I also imagined all kinds of ages for the boy.  I also couldn't imagine a young boy who carries a stuffed animal would be hanging out with the smokers outside the train.

It intrigued me enough that I mentioned the boy, the monkey and the Batman on Facebook.

Awhile after I posted the comment I went back to my earlier picture and realized that I had inadvertently photographed the kid with backpack!   I enlarged the photo, as I just took a quicky shot with my phone and it wasn't a large file, but you can clearly see the little monkey face peeking out of the backpack.

My seatmate and I ended up talking to the boy for a few minutes before my stop and found out a few things.  He's 18 and had been visiting with his girlfriend for a few weeks.  He's now on his way back home.  He seems like a really nice kid, but he is still such a little boy.  Everything he said just told me that he may have more to learn than a lot of kids his age.  I wish him well.  I'm glad the monkey and Batman were on this trip with him.

Have a great day!
Kristin

Waldo Flea Market

It's been almost a week since I visited Waldo Flea Market and I'm still thinking about it.  In fact, there are a few vendors that I'd love to stop by and see again.

I've already talked a bit about the trip in these two posts - Souvenir Land and  Route 301 Florida.

Here's one of the main walkways in the flea market.  Boiled peanuts, cosmetics, car parts, misc vintage and junky junk, some food and lots and lots to see.

There were a lot of farm tables at the flea market.  It wasn't all local, but it really looked good.  Before Tom's liver transplant I would have picked up a grapefruit or two for him, but grapefruit is no longer allowed in his diet.  Grapefruit is so good at boosting immune systems that it would make his immune suppressant drugs null and void.  

At one booth you could ride a pony and buy a chicken!
I didn't see the ponies though.

Some of the vendors aren't as organized and neat as others. 

I liked several of these signs.  I think I spent a half hour wandering around this guys "area."

He got a phone call while I was there about this Coke sign.  Someone wanted to trade him something for it, but he wasn't going for it. 

This Miami Beach sign was one of the things that I pondered.  Funny thing, I never once looked for the price on it.   I have no idea what he was asking for it...bummer.  The Home of the 500 plate is cool, too!

Here are the full sized Dutch kids.  I featured them as the Photo of the Day here in, More Kisses. They were marked $25 each.  I can't imagine buying one without the other!

This shop, with the Dutch kids, the bowling pin and the letters, had a lot of items that I would have loved to acquire and put in my booth.  Well, I used to have an antique booth about 9 years ago and I loved finding cool stuff to put in it.  I'm thinking about doing it again - although you can't buy from another dealer and expect to make money.  So I passed on almost everything.

She had a great deal on these letters though.  The whole lot for $10 or $1 each.  I chose to just buy a C for a dollar. 

I'll leave the flea market with this photo.  This gal carried her bicycle around the entire flea market.  I think she might have been a regular here, either that or really friendly, because she talked with a lot of vendors. 

I had fun at the flea market, that's for sure.  It might be worth it one weekend to load up the car with a ton of stuff and rent a booth down there.  It looked like people were buying and that's a very good sign.

Have a wonderful weekend,
Kristin

Wildlife in Orlando

I've been hearing about Louie for over a year now.
Louie is the resident alligator at this place.

Louis hasn't been tagged or anything and he hasn't flashed his drivers license, but one of the residents of this community has taken a real interest in the wildlife around here.

The bride in this photo is Meg and the groom is Jon.  They live in the community shown above and they enjoy their wildlife friends.  Meg gives facebook updates on Louie.  I get a kick out of it :)

I've known about Meg for almost 20 years, but had only met her once before.  You see, she's been one of Bob's best friend since they were wee little ones, so she's been in lots of conversations and stories that I've heard.  Meg used to live on the East Coast fairly close to Bob for a long time, but now she's moved down here to FL and she just recently got married - so I had to bring all of us together.

Road Trip!!

Not to mention, I wanted to see Louie!

Louie had babies.  Can you see that little gator body hanging out on the edge of the pond?  I tried to get closer but I freaked him out and he flew into the pond!

So then all I saw of the gator baby was his head.  Beware of the gator head!

Another one of Louie's kids was hanging out on the other side of the pond.

All of this talk about Louie and he never did show himself.

Meg pointed out the Bald Eagle on our drive into her community.
I can see why nature photographers have telephoto lenses.  I'm just pretending you can see something.

"See that black dot with a smaller white dot on top of it?  Yep!  That's a Bald Eagle.  Now get a good look."

Then we walked across the street to look in the other pond to see if maybe Louie was there.  We didn't see Louie but we did see this gorgeous Blue Heron.  Once again, that telephoto lens would be so helpful. 

At the other end of this pond was this delightful pair of Sandhill Cranes.  They were not scared of me, which was a relief because I was able to get fairly close.

They were both very interested in all of the insects and other delectables in the ground.  Most of the time they both had their heads down, but I managed to catch them a few times taking a short break.

I didn't realize that Sandhill Cranes were so large.  I always pictured them as small thin birds.  I was wrong.  Very wrong.

Here's another shot of Meg's fishy that was my Photo of the Day this morning.  It's just the cutest thing!

Meg and Jon got married just a few days before we arrived so I took a few shots of the roses they received from family.   Their house was so dark that I had a real hard time.  I was really wishing for a little Lisa Ceaser magic, that's for sure. 

I thought this beautiful pottery by the door was a great ending to the photo story. 

Thanks Meg and Jon for meeting us at IKEA, for taking us on a wildlife tour, for the wonderful dinner at Opa and for the big laughs we had reading the mash book from your college days.  (Mittens rules!!) Thanks for the comfortable guest rooms and the breakfast in the morning.  Thanks also for leading me directly to the expressway after breakfast so that I didn't have to think about it :)  It was such a joy to see you again Meg and so nice to finally meet Jon for the first time.  Congratulations you two.

In a few years Bob is going to have to move down here so she can hang out with her BFFs more often.  I can see it now  :)

Have a great day!
Kristin

Daytona Beach

I lived in Daytona Beach from 2003 - 2006 so I was excited to come back, explore and photograph the area with Bob.  One of the last times she was in Daytona with me it was an icy cold week.  We did not have a lot of outdoor fun in the sun.

This time it was a very different trip! 

It was gorgeous.

We stopped at a little dock area on the Intercoastal and we scared the seagulls, took a photograph of our reflections in the water and then drove on over to the beach.

The tollbooth guy was Bob :)  What a hoot.  If he only know how much the Bobs in the car loved the name Bob!  We paid our $5 to drive on the beach.

The sea mist was such that it completely obscured the view down the beach.
I thought it looked neat though.

You can buy all kinds of things on the beach in Daytona and sometimes you can get it all from one truck.  There are folks who have chairs and umbrellas or even ATVs for rent. 

I still think it's just wild to see cars on the beach, but it sure makes hauling your stuff to the beach a lot easier.  There is a dedicated parking area and driving path, so it may look crazy, but it's really quite orderly.  The big Spring Break weekends the beaches are a zoo.  I don't think I ever went on the beach those weekends. 

A common sight in Daytona is the carry-a-case-of-beer walk. I can't begin to tell you how many times I saw this when we had our business down on the beach. A dozen times a day?  Two dozen times?  I was happy to catch one while Bob and I were in town!

Previous links to the Bob and Bob Road trip
The Swimming Lady
Many Mailboxes
Fernandina Beach part I, II
Sea Foam Clouds
Sunshine and Clouds
El Fonzo

Have a great day!
Kristin

Pansy

The landscapers at our condo community planted pansies in all of the planters last week. They are just so beautiful that I thought I'd share.  Purple pansies are my favorite - but my favorite color is purple, so that's pretty much a given :)

I'm going to take a little blogging break this weekend.  I've got a road trip planned for later today and I'm picking up my car shortly.  I had to get a CV joint replaced, an oil change and new tires before I could go anywhere.  The car was doing the shimmy shimmy shake and I had a gut feeling that wasn't a good sign.

My husband is going to stay home, take care of the kitty and about 20 minutes before I come home is when he'll do the dishes - guaranteed!

See you all bright and early Monday morning!  Have a great weekend :)
Kristin

Lights, Camera, Launch!!

When I think of Florida, I think of...

sunshine
palm trees
hurricanes
beaches
the rat (I mean Disney)
the Daytona 500
NASA
and I Dream of Jeanie
just to name a few.

When I was growing up I loved watching I dream of Jeanie not to mention, Cocoa Beach was such a cool name for a beach!

I'm cuckoo for cocoa puffs!

that just came out of nowhere!

excuse me.


NASA is such a big part of Florida that I'm truly sad the era of the shuttle is over.  One more shuttle is scheduled to go up, it's been delayed several times and now it's departure date is Nov 30th, 2010.   I have never been to Kennedy Space Center in Cocoa Beach, but I have witnessed several shuttle launches from the beach and again from my driveway when we lived in Daytona Beach.

The lights that illuminate one section of the Saturn Rocket at night

What has completely escaped my mind is that NASA is not only in Florida.

When I pulled into the Alabama Welcome Center Rest Area on I-65 just South of the Tennessee border I was amazed to see a rocket!

It was a real Saturn 1B rocket and it was pretty amazing.

There was a nice big display with several of these informational boards that explained the missions of the Saturn Rockets.   One board explained that the Saturn Rocket missions had a 100% success rate and put 12 Americans on the moon. 

It's a given now that we've had men on the moon, but when this installation was placed in the Welcome Center in Alabama, it was 1979.  The first man on the moon had only been 10 years earlier.   

That is just some incredible stuff and some very very brave men.

I stopped at almost all of the Welcome Center rest areas as I got to them in each state.  I find that there was always something interesting to see, but I have to say that the rocket was by far the best rest area art I've ever seen.

(...so technically it isn't art as much as it's history, but rest area history didn't sound as interesting!)

This last photo was an aerial view from Google Maps.  I wasn't airborn at all on my trip home, thankfully!

The U.S. Space & Rocket Center is located in Huntsville, Alabama - just a few miles from this installation. The center was opened in 1970 and has been continuously updated and improved as technology and space exploration has opened up our way of looking at the world and space.

 NASA's reach is nationwide, (Universal, actually!) even though I only think of Florida.  However, I now know that Alabama shares in the NASA history, both past and present.  Congratulations Alabama for being a part of such an exciting part of U.S. space exploration.

Have a great day!
Kristin

Hwy 49 and Post Office

One of my little jaunts off the expressway on my way to Michigan I ended up on Hwy 49.  As I recall this is the road where I got a little mixed up and instead of advancing 15 miles, I ended up back on the expressway 4 miles back from where I got off.  Oh well - The building below was worth a little backtracking.  (This was in North Carolina)

I thought this looked like an old post office and since it's located on the corner of Post Office road, I'm just going to go with that. 

This photo, where you can see the giant cracks in the brick, reminds me of a Ripley's Believe It or Not house. 

I don't know how the section over the door is still intact.  It looks like it would fall over in a light wind.

Driving down the roads I noticed that the local clay was a beautiful bright orange.  Considering how orange the bricks and interior of this building are, I'm thinking that the building was made from locally made bricks.

The roof that had caved in looked like leather.  I highly doubt that leather was used as a roofing material, but that's what it looked like to me.  If I didn't think I'd have been buried alive I would have gone into this place and investigated it further.

Every single time I see an abandoned building I can't help but wonder why.  Why was it abandoned?  Did a storm come along and rip the roof off which started the downfall?  Was there an earthquake? a lightning storm?  Was the building replaced by something else and this one was just seen as too far gone to revive?

The colors in this building tugged at me.  I loved the collection of colors - there are oranges, purples, deep reds and browns with weathered white wood and rusty metal.  These are the colors of Autumn.  These are what I consider to be Michigan colors.  

I've painted the interiors of my various homes these colors.  When in Michigan it was easy to do, but living in Florida now it's harder to go with the autumn color palette.  My current living room is deep burgundy but yellow and aqua have joined the color parade to give it the Florida vibe. 

The back of the building is worse than the front.  It looked to me like someone had used the back portion as their living quarters.  Maybe that's because I can see drywall.

I bet this place was hot as could be in the summer and shivering cold in the winter because there isn't a lick of insulation between the wallboard and the brick.  I recant my earlier statement that someone may have lived here.  I think this was probably just the back office of the business that used the front.  I still think it was a Post Office.

Day Two of NaBloPoMo.  My goal to get my daily blog post written before 8pm went along pretty well.  I got the photos edited and put into my post by 5pm.  If I can keep this up I will be a very happy camper.

Have a great day!
Kristin