Mistaking manatees for mailboxes, and other m things
This entry is for felisdemens, who will understand why, in a recent quest to see manatees, I ended up at a post office museum.
These sorts of things happen to me. But let me explain. Back in December, I noted to my mother that I wanted to start exploring the many state parks of central Florida. "Oh," said my mother happily. "We can do manatees!"
Now, generally, I'm all about creatures that do nothing but lumber around in the water and eat, but I have to admit, manatees are kinda dull. The places where they spend the winter, though, generally aren't - manatees are creatures of comfort, said comfort being hot water, and they therefore head right to power plants and to Florida's springs, where the water stays at a nice 72 degrees year rounds, whenever it gets a touch chilly. As you might have noticed - it's apparently a lot more obvious if you are a cat - it's gotten a touch chilly. More than a touch. Which meant manatee time.
So, Thursday morning, we trundled my wheelchair into the car and headed up to Blue Springs State Park to go look at all of the wallowing manatees -
-- only to find that every other person in the state had had the exact same idea; a line of cars billowed along the road in a manner that was probably not all that kind to the manatees. The park, we were informed, was completely closed to further visitors.
So, back out we headed, passing all the houses with blankets and sheets draped over their plants and their lawns to keep the plants and the lawns nice and comfy and warm (seriously), looking for an I-Hop. Alas, Orange City, Florida, is not the I-Hop sort of place. We had, however, seen a large sign for a Gram's Kitchen, which, if it did not sound precisely like a place where manatees might congregate, did sound like a place where waffles might congregate. We liked the sound of congregating waffles (it's a universal love, isn't it), so up we went to Gram's Kitchen, which happens to be located in the historic 1876 Heritage Inn (in the U.S., if it's more than 100 years old, it's historic, even if, as in this case, absolutely nothing has ever happened at it) walked in -
To find ourselves in a manatee-free post office museum.
The museum itself fills the current and previous lobby of the still functioning hotel and rolls along through the hallways and to the bathrooms all the way over to Gram's Kitchen, and if you are looking for an in depth display of U.S. postal machines, stamping things, old fashioned mailboxes from the 1940s and free old U.S. stamps and envelopes, you have come to the right place. If you are looking for heated bathrooms, not so much. "I hope the restaurant is heated," said my mother, and fortunately, it was. Waffles congregated on my plate and begged me to eat them. I obliged, because I'm friendly that way to waffles, and then we looked at the post office museum a bit more.
The stamps, however, failed to materialize as manatees, so, feeling the goals of the day had not precisely been accomplished, back to the park we went - to find that the line, filled with people less willing to study the history of the U.S. post office instead of looking at lolling manatees, had not moved. So home we headed, where I had this exhilarating im conversation with a friend:
Friend: So, what were you up to today?
Me: I visited a postal museum! And I almost picked up a free used stamp.
Friend: I take it back. You might actually have a pathetic life.
Undaunted, my mother and I set off again, but this time much earlier in the morning, arriving at the park shortly before 10 am - and this time we got in. And saw manatees.
I even snapped a few photos. Unfortunately, I didn't realize until I got home that I'd date stamped all of them - with the wrong date. Oh well.
Here be manatees:
Florida gar swimming in the extraordinarily clear water:
Blue Springs:
The headwaters of Blue Springs. An alligator hides in the shadows.
These sorts of things happen to me. But let me explain. Back in December, I noted to my mother that I wanted to start exploring the many state parks of central Florida. "Oh," said my mother happily. "We can do manatees!"
Now, generally, I'm all about creatures that do nothing but lumber around in the water and eat, but I have to admit, manatees are kinda dull. The places where they spend the winter, though, generally aren't - manatees are creatures of comfort, said comfort being hot water, and they therefore head right to power plants and to Florida's springs, where the water stays at a nice 72 degrees year rounds, whenever it gets a touch chilly. As you might have noticed - it's apparently a lot more obvious if you are a cat - it's gotten a touch chilly. More than a touch. Which meant manatee time.
So, Thursday morning, we trundled my wheelchair into the car and headed up to Blue Springs State Park to go look at all of the wallowing manatees -
-- only to find that every other person in the state had had the exact same idea; a line of cars billowed along the road in a manner that was probably not all that kind to the manatees. The park, we were informed, was completely closed to further visitors.
So, back out we headed, passing all the houses with blankets and sheets draped over their plants and their lawns to keep the plants and the lawns nice and comfy and warm (seriously), looking for an I-Hop. Alas, Orange City, Florida, is not the I-Hop sort of place. We had, however, seen a large sign for a Gram's Kitchen, which, if it did not sound precisely like a place where manatees might congregate, did sound like a place where waffles might congregate. We liked the sound of congregating waffles (it's a universal love, isn't it), so up we went to Gram's Kitchen, which happens to be located in the historic 1876 Heritage Inn (in the U.S., if it's more than 100 years old, it's historic, even if, as in this case, absolutely nothing has ever happened at it) walked in -
To find ourselves in a manatee-free post office museum.
The museum itself fills the current and previous lobby of the still functioning hotel and rolls along through the hallways and to the bathrooms all the way over to Gram's Kitchen, and if you are looking for an in depth display of U.S. postal machines, stamping things, old fashioned mailboxes from the 1940s and free old U.S. stamps and envelopes, you have come to the right place. If you are looking for heated bathrooms, not so much. "I hope the restaurant is heated," said my mother, and fortunately, it was. Waffles congregated on my plate and begged me to eat them. I obliged, because I'm friendly that way to waffles, and then we looked at the post office museum a bit more.
The stamps, however, failed to materialize as manatees, so, feeling the goals of the day had not precisely been accomplished, back to the park we went - to find that the line, filled with people less willing to study the history of the U.S. post office instead of looking at lolling manatees, had not moved. So home we headed, where I had this exhilarating im conversation with a friend:
Friend: So, what were you up to today?
Me: I visited a postal museum! And I almost picked up a free used stamp.
Friend: I take it back. You might actually have a pathetic life.
Undaunted, my mother and I set off again, but this time much earlier in the morning, arriving at the park shortly before 10 am - and this time we got in. And saw manatees.
I even snapped a few photos. Unfortunately, I didn't realize until I got home that I'd date stamped all of them - with the wrong date. Oh well.
Here be manatees:
Florida gar swimming in the extraordinarily clear water:
Blue Springs:
The headwaters of Blue Springs. An alligator hides in the shadows.