January 16 -- Native Americans and old cars

We expected to be driving most of the day today, hoping to get home late afternoon. We left Columbus between 9:30 and 10, heading north on Highway 27. I don't handle interstate travel very well, and Smoky is willing to travel on state roads whenever we can. We had planned to take 27 all the way home, but when we got to Carrollton, we decided to see what route the GPS recommended. Surprisingly, "she" directed us up Highway 61 to Dallas and on to Cartersville.

Marble effigy figures of a man and woman recovered at the
edge of mound C. They date to 1450 A.D.

Neither Smoky nor I had traveled on this highway before. We discovered, much to our delight, the Etowah Indian Mounds Historic Site, which was home to several thousand Native Americans from 1000 A.D. to 1550 A.D. This 54-acre site on the Etowah River includes three large mounds and several smaller ones, a large area called the plaza, and a defensive ditch, among other interesting features. Etowah Mounds is the most intact Mississippian Culture site in the Southeast. About 9% of the area has been excavated, and some wonderful artifacts are in the museum on the site. You can read more about this site at their website.

Photo taken from the top of the second mound
looking toward the largest mound.

Large mound with stairs erected over the original earth
steps so that visitors could get to the top of the mound.

Replicas of gorgets probably worn as necklaces.

In Smoky's childhood home state of Illinois is a similar site near Collinsville called the Cahokia Mounds where Native Americans lived during roughly the same period. Although the Cahokia Mounds area was home to many more people than Etowah Mounds, there are many similarities between the two. We found the Etowah Mounds fascinating.

We headed out of Cartersville and got on Highway 411 to go to Cleveland, Tennessee. Just past where 411 goes under I-75 near Cartersville, Smoky found a place he had heard of and has wanted to visit -- Old Car City USA, a most unique museum in White, Georgia. Here is the way they describe their location (from their website):

Old Car City in White, Georgia contains the worlds largest known classic car junkyard. Visitors enjoy the beautiful vegetation of the deep south that is intertwined with the hundreds of cars that reside in Old Car City. Old Car City started as a Car Dealership in 1931 and is still family owned and operated. Come enjoy the Old South environment, folk art, ghosts of beautiful classic cars, and much more.

We didn't take time to go inside the junkyard today (they closed just an hour of so after we arrived), but the owner said Smoky could photograph from the front. Here are some of his photos:

Step inside the old dealership building and find
the answer to all your car questions!

Just so you know what you'll see
at Old Car City USA!

Photographers are welcome here. Entrance fee for people with cameras is $25; those without cameras pay $15. This is a really cool place!

Obviously, we weren't going to make it home until evening, so we stopped at Uncle Gus's Mountain Pit Bar B Que in Ten Mile for dinner. Our good friends and neighbors Deb and Jim introduced us to this great place, and since we were driving very close to it, we couldn't pass up this opportunity!

Home at last! Our cat Cato greeted us warmly, considering we had been gone for three weeks! Deb and Jim took good care of him for us.

Another excellent adventure comes to a close.

-- Shann

January 15 -- how to pass a long day driving

We left Tarpon Springs this morning, heading north. It didn't take long before we hit the rain. Thankfully, it was a soft rain, so our ability to see the road was not impaired. I was greatful for this rain in a way; leaving would have been harder on a warm, sunny day!

Because of the rain, we didn't make many stops along the way, so there are few new photos to post tonight. As we drove through Perry, Florida, we looked for a little cafe on the square of the old downtown where we had stopped several years ago on our way through town. The signs were still out but the cafe was closed. That meant no pie!

Since we have no new photos, I'm going to post some we took early this trip. On several days, Smoky shot some closeups of eyes. See if you can figure out what bird they belong to. I'll put the key below.

No. 1

No. 2

No. 3

No. 4

Key:

1. Brown pelican
2. Brown pelican
3. Snowy egret
4. Cormorant

Smoky also had some fun focusing on feet. Can you tell these birds?

No. 1

No. 2

No. 3

Key:

1. Snowy egret. I think this must be a young one, because other snowy egrets had yellow feet.
2. Brown pelican.
3. Little blue heron.

Tomorrow we'll be home and this adventure will come to an end.

--Shann

January 14 -- exploring the sponge docks

Boats in Tarpon Springs Sponge Docks

The Tarpon Springs sponge docks area, located near the mouth of the Anclote River as it flows into the Gulf of Mexico, is known as the "Sponge Capital of the World." Sponge harvesting began in this area back in the early 1900s after being introduced by John Cocoris, the first Greek man to come to Tarpon Springs. As his sponge business prospered, more people began to migrate to Tarpon Springs from Greece.

The Greek community is thriving in this coastal city, and at the sponge docks visitors can get a taste of Greek life and the wonderful Greek food served in a variety of restaurants and bakeries. We had been looking forward to this experience for several days and had hoped to find some authentic Greek cooking in addition to a glimpse into the life of a sponge diver. We weren't disappointed!

Sponge boat captain.

We arrived at the dock just as one of the commercial boats came in with its harvest. Smoky photographed the sponges being removed from the boat, already sorted by type and partially treated to remove the animal parts. We watched as the boat captain loaded his harvest into his truck and drove off, probably to a processing plant to complete that cleaning process. Eventually the end product, the skeleton of the living sponge, is available for sale.

Unloading sponges.

Just a few more to go.

Yummy bakery treats!

We met Charlie and Becky, Smoky's high school friends, at the dock late morning and caught up on all the family news over lunch at Yanni's Restaurant. The food was good but it seemed a little more commercialized than we were hoping for.

After lunch we walked across the street to Hella's bakery, located just next door to Hella's Restaurant. The shelves at this bakery were loaded with delicious looking pastries and cakes. Smoky and I had already sampled an almond paste cookie earlier, but that didn't stop us from having another couple of samples. Mine was a chocolate-drizzled coconut macaroon; Smoky had a butter cookie dipped in chocolate.

You can definitely find any kind of sponge you might want here along with lots of other souvenirs. The four of us enjoyed wandering around the shops.

Frank, St. Nicholas diver.

After Charlie and Becky left, Smoky and I went out on the St. Nicholas sponge boat (a replica of a working boat) for a ride around the harbor area, an interesting commentary on the history of sponging in Tarpon Springs, and an exhibition of a traditional sponge dive. Our diver, Frank, dressed in his canvas diving suit complete with weighted shoes, weights on his shoulders, and brass diving helmet, went over the side. We watched as Frank let the air out of his suit and then sank to the bottom to hunt for a sponge. Although Frank came up in just a few minutes, when a diver is out harvesting sponges, he can stay down a long time if he is in water 30-feet deep or less.

Before diving helmet has been attached.

It took two helpers to get the helmet on and fastened down.

Down he goes!

Dive is over; he just has to make it up the steps with ~170 lb of diving suit and weights!

If you want to read more about diving helmets, check out this web article about Nicholas Toth, who creates diving helmets of brass, copper, and leather, using the same techniques developed by his grandfather Anthony Lerios, who came to Tarpon Springs back in 1905. It is fascinating reading. I read this article to Smoky as he was processing his photos from the boat trip. When he enlarged a photo of our diver Frank, he noticed this label on the suit:

Frank's helmet was made by Nicholas Toth,
grandson of Anthony Lerios.

Example of flower-pot sponge. Soak
the sponge, insert plant, keep sponge
wet and plant will grow!

Going on this short boat trip made me want to buy some sponges to use in my fabric dying and printing, so we checked out the various types of sponges at the Sponge Exchange just up the street from the dock. I found several that I'll have fun using.

After we left the Sponge Exchange, we found an ice cream and gelato shop. We were just going to look at what they had, but the gelato looked so good we couldn't resist, especially after getting a sample! And of course, we also wanted to have dinner while we were in the area, not wanting to pass up this opportunity for some authentic Greek food.

Costa's Greek Cuisine. A great, authentic Greek restaurant.

Fortunately we discovered a great place off the main street, Costa's Greek Cuisine. The food was wonderful! I had spanikopita and Greek salad; Smoky had grilled grouper with vegetables. I discovered that this Greek salad had a surprise in it. Hiding under the lettuce, tomato, cucumber, onions, anchovies, olives, and peppers was a scoop of creamy, delicious Greek potato salad. Feta cheese was sprinkled over all this, and then the salad was topped with Costa's special homemade Greek dressing. This was a taste treat, indeed. Smoky's grouper tasted amazing. I asked our server how it was prepared. She said it is sprinkled with a small amount of their olive oil/lemon juice/spice combination before grilling and then more is added afterwards. Of course the exact ingredients are part of their special recipe, but I appreciated her telling us this much. The vegetable that completed Smoky's entree was green beans cooked with tomatoes and corn. Very unique and tasty. This was just the sort of Greek dining experience we were hoping for.

Night was just falling when we left the sponge docks. We wanted to stop by the local Greek Orthodox Church, St. Nicholas Cathedral. We had heard that it was a beautiful church; actually, it was breathtaking! The stained glass windows were exquisite. You can see the dome from the photograph of the outside. Inside the church, this dome is a pallet for incredible works of religious art.

St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church

Inside view of this magnificent cathedral.

What a nice end to our Florida adventure. Tomorrow we head toward home.

--Shann

January 13 -- another interesting day!

Bodega -- our lunch spot
in St. Pete.

Recently Smoky has been talking about wanting to go to Cuba now that the island is more open. At this point, however, entering as a tourist is still not allowed, but hopefully it will be soon. To get a taste of Cuba, we decided to look for a restaurant serving Cuban cuisine.

Smoky remembered Tampa having a Cuban community many years ago when he was in the Air Force in this region. Even though we searched several times, we didn't find just what we were looking for. When we checked GPS to see how it would route us to Tarpon Springs, our stop for the night, we found ourselves routed through St. Petersburg. On a lark we searched for Cuban food there and found "Bodega" -- a small walk-up cantina cafe on Central Avenue in Downtown, St. Pete, where you can sit at a table on the street or in the back on a covered patio and listen to great salsa music while you eat.

Lechon with jicama slaw and maduros.

This was just the kind of place we had hoped to find. Smoky had lechon, a Cuban-style roast pork with grilled onions, and jicama slaw. The slaw was a wonderful mixture of cucumbers, sliced mango, onions, peppers, and jicama sliced into strips, and topped with a chili lime dressing. I'm hoping to find a similar recipe. I had a coconut marinated chicken breast with the traditional black beans and rice. Very flavorful! Both entrees came with maduros (fried plaintains).

After lunch we drove on to Tarpon Springs where we are staying for a couple of nights. It's always a treat not to have to unpack at night and repack the very next day! I also took advantage of happy hour, which I learned at the Mucky Duck last night for us older folks means the time we get to take a nap. (There have to be some advantages to getting older...)

Tarpon Springs is a focal point of local Greek culture and dining, thanks to early Greek immigrants who settled here to harvest sponges in the waters off the coast. Tomorrow we head to the sponge docks for our own taste treat. We understand the best souvenir is a Greek pastry!

Tonight we went to Sunset Beach, a small spit of land extending into the Gulf. This has been turned into a very nice park, with a performance area, lots of benches and picnic areas, and a great panoramic view of the ocean, especially as the sun sets.

While Smoky was preparing to take some photos of the sunset, we met a "local" artist, Don King. I put local in quotation marks because he came here from up north after retiring. He and Smoky shared a love of photography and sunsets, so their conversation was quite animated. Don shared his website with us. He is currently working in watercolors. Check out his art at donkingwatercolors.com. It is pretty amazing! His subject matter, New York street scenes, is quite unique for watercolor.

Tarpon Springs at Sunset Beach. 

Sunset Beach is a popular spot!

Looking south from Sunset Beach, the view tonight was still great!

Tomorrow we are meeting some high school friends of Smoky's -- Charlie and Becky. They moved from Illinois to Spring Hill, Florida a few years ago.

--Shann

January 12 -- a quick trip to Sanibel and Captiva Islands

Today was supposed to be a day to photograph birds on Fort Myers Beach, but the weather forecast (rain) encouraged us to rethink our plans. Since Sanibel and Captiva were both showing overcast but no rain until late in the day, we jumped at the chance to spend the day on the islands!

Smoky loves Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge; it is a great place to see and photograph lots of wading birds, and we have some really nice photos of hawks and osprey taken there, too, in past years. Plus we were hoping for an excuse to eat at our favorite island restaurant, the Mucky Duck on Captiva, where the key lime pie has for years set the standard for that dessert for us.

Our favorite ice cream store!

As we were driving over the causeway to Sanibel, we were reminiscing about past trips. We both remembered a great ice cream shop on the east end of the island near the lighthouse. We knew it had a unique name and that the ice cream was the best we had every eaten. I googled "ice cream Sanibel" and found the shop -- Pinocchio's Original Italian Ice Cream!

It wasn't even lunch time as we were crossing onto the island. Smoky asked me if I thought it would kill us to have ice cream before lunch. I laughed and said "Definitely not!" So we headed straight to Pinocchio's!

The shop location looked a little different, but the ice cream was just as we remembered! After trying several flavors, Smoky settled on Cherry Vanilla (real dark cherries, not the candied kind), and I picked Sanibel Crunch (vanilla with chopped pecans and coconut, I think). We sat outside on the front porch and enjoyed every bite!

Left: Smoky's Cherry Vanilla; right: my Sanibel Crunch.
Note the signature animal cracker on top.

While I was eating, I walked to the end of the porch opposite Pinocchio's and saw some amazing bakery items through the window. I had not remembered there being a bakery in this building on our last trip. As soon as I finished my ice cream, I went back inside to check out the bakery. I discovered Geppetto's Beach Foodies, a market for people who love good food, as described in one of their brochures. Every single item in their display case looked divine. I couldn't wait for Smoky to see this!

Crodoles© -- available only at Geppetto's!

Two items looked particularly good to me. They were round and bite-sized. I asked what they were and were told "Crodoles©" -- sweet croissant bites that resemble donut holes. But these are baked, not fried. One had a delicate coating of powdered sugar and raspberry sauce. The other had been split and filled with a peach-flavored pastry filling and topped with powered sugar and sliced almonds. We had to try these!

Across the counter from the sweets were some great savory items: artisan sandwiches, NYC bakery style pizza, and several other items, all of which made my mouth water, in spite of being very satisfied after Pinocchio's ice cream. I settled on some Crodoles© and a slice of pizza. After we drove to the lighthouse at the end of the island, we stopped back by Geppetto's for another slice of pizza and one of their signature pastries, the Sanibel Blossom, a pull-apart round crossant filled with strawberries, cream, cinnamon, and chocolate in separate parts of the blossom. My, my...

Donna shows me her specialties of the day: NYC style pizza
and some yummy sweets, including her specialty,
Sanibel Blossom©

As excellent as every bite of the food was, the best part of this morning was meeting owner Donna Puma and hearing some of the story of how she and husband Tom had purchased Pinocchio's in 2007, a year or so after moving to Sanibel. A few years later, they opened Geppetto's. I could tell her food was going to be delicious even before I tasted it because it was filled with her love.

Donna also blogs about cooking and eating at Hungry Fooderati. Check out her blog for some very interesting recipes and more info about Sanibel Island. Follow these links if you want to know more about Geppetto's and Pinocchio's. And be sure to visit if you get to Sanibel. You don't want to miss Donna's delightful creations!

Smoky got some great closeups of pelicans, a willet, and a snowy egret on the beach at the far east end of the island near the lighthouse. A fishing pier with lots of fishing activity draws the birds in, and they have no hesitation around people, hoping, I feel sure, for a handout from the day's catch! For us that means great opportunities for closeup photography. Check out the drowsy pelican.

Brown pelican trying to catch a few winks.

I really like these images of a willet, snowy egret and pelican, all taken near the fishing pier near the lighthouse.

Willet.

Snowy egret.

Brown pelican.

We headed next to Ding Darling Wildlife Sanctuary to see what birds were hanging out in the marshes and tidal pools. This has long been one of our favorite birding locations, and today was a good day. Most of the birds had congregated in the tidal flats. We saw several roseate spoonbills along with lots of gulls, several species of wading birds, cormorants, lots of white pelicans (with their 8-ft wing span), great blue herons, great egrets, diving ducks, and probably some I have forgotten. Lots of people enjoy this wild area, and you can always count on seeing at least one other photographer with a lens bigger than yours!

We stopped at Cross Dike and walked down to an area where we usually see some birds. Today the yellow-crowned night heron was hunting for crab on the bank of the inlet. He didn't let the curious visitors interfere with his work.

Yellow-crowned night heron looking for crab.

Once caught, the crab gets cracked in that strong beak.

Oops. Crab's revenge! Can't seem
to shake that claw loose.

We wanted to get to Captiva before sunset, first to be on the early seating at the Mucky Duck, and second to see the sunset from their beach. We had window seats tonight, so we got to watch the progression of the sun dropping lower and lower in the sky. Just as we finished our delicious salad topped with shrimp (for Smoky) and grouper (for me) and key lime pie for both of us, the sunset color was building. It was a really lovely evening and a great end to a delightful day.

Sunset photos from the Mucky Duck's beach.

Don't forget you can click on the photos to see larger versions.

--Shann