Last weekend was a long weekend thanks to thanksgiving.  We had planned on heading away on Wednesday evening to Fort Myers or Fort Lauderdale, and then making our way to Key West by Thursday, coming home again on Sunday.

When we got down to planning the whole trip hotels looked expensive in Key West, many of them also charged additional “Resort Fees” and most seemed to charge for parking.  It all added up to a place determined to screw every penny out of the tourist.  We’ve gotten used to things being a little more friendly around here and we lost interest in the long weekend trip.

On Thursday we watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade on TV, and then had our thanksgiving dinner (BBQ Ribs) before heading to the Cinema, where we settled in for the day and watched 3 movies.  We were going to go for 4 but after 3 we called it a night.

On Saturday we were thinking about what to do, and I did a search for hotels in Fort Lauderdale.  We have been wanting to visit Coral Castle for a while now, so we took the plunge, booked a room at the Sheraton and headed to Fort Lauderdale.  We arrived at about 6.30pm.  There was a small mixup about which room they wanted us to stay in but we sorted it.  First impressions of the hotel were good, the lobby is decorated to look luxurious, chandeliers and antique looking furniture are everywhere.

Most of the rooms face out onto a balcony overlooking a couryard, but the whole area has a roof on it.  It looks like it was once a motel, but now it’s a very nice atrium, with waterfalls, and trees.  There are clusters of tables and chairs for the various bars and restaurants in the hotel. 

Our room was nice, it was a 2 room arrangement, with a living room/kitchen and a separate bedroom.  We watched a little TV before heading next door to Bennigans for something to eat.

The next day we checked out and headed off in search of Coral Castle.  The castle is in the town of Homestead, about 40 miles south of Fort Lauderdale.  We found the town quite easily, and decided that the first thing we needed to do was have Lunch.

We drove around for a while getting our bearings, and looking for somewhere to eat.  There were surprisingly few Restaurants in that part of town.  Along with looking for a restaurant we were also following the map we had.  We settled on Lunch at Chillies then continued our search for the castle.

Some how we managed to head in completely the wrong direction, while convincing ourselves that we were following the map.  By a combination of trial and error, intuition and ignoring the map we managed to find the castle.

 Coral Castle was built by Ed Leedskalnin a Latvian Immigrant who was Jilted by his sixteen year old bride to be on the eve of their wedding.  He spent the rest of his life building the castle, and everything in it (Chairs, Tables, Beds, Sculptures, etc) out of Coral Rock.

He worked at night so nobody ever actaully saw “how” he managed to move and work with rocks, some of which weighed as much as 11 tons.  One of the gates to the castle weighs 9 tons.  When built it could be opened with one finger.  It has since come off it’s bearings and no longer works. To give you an idea of what Ed accomplished, it is almost impossible to find a company willing or able to work on fixing the gate today.  

 The last time the gate needed to be repaired it took “a 20 ton crane, crane operator, engineer, and a crew of five, two weeks” to repair it.  It apparently took Ed only five days, working alone, to set it in place originally.

One of the most impressive things about the Castle is that you can sit on the chairs, lay on the beds etc.  The coral sculptures are not off limits behind fences.  It seems to have stood up pretty well to the hardship of thousands of tourists.  Hopefully that will continue.

 It’s easy to get a feel for Ed’s sense of humour.  The Throne Room contains a Large comfortable throne for Ed, which rocks slightley.  It also contains a smaller throne for his bride (sweet sixteen, who left him at the altar, and who never came to see the castle despite numerous invitations).  There’s a third throne, a smaller one for a child.   And a 4 throne, the most uncomfortable chair in the castle, directly behind Ed’s throne where he wouldn’t have to look at it, is for his Mother In Law.

There are hints of Ed’s interest in Astronomy to be seen.  From the illustration on the gate of the garden of the Earth’s motion around the sun, to the Polaris Telescope, a hole in the wall of the garden, and a hole in tall slab of coral rock outside the garden.  When you line up the two holes and look through, you are always looking at the North Star.

 

I had noticed earlier in the day that the Coral Castle was on Highway 1, which happens to be the road to Key West.  I have wanted to drive out to Key West ever since I got here, but never seem to have the time.   I figured since I was this close it would be a shame not to at least drive some of the way there. 

Key West is at the end of a string of Islands off the tip of Florida.  To get there you cross over 40 bridges including one 7 mile long bridge.   We set out along Highway one to see how far we could get.  We were 126 miles from Key West,  If it was a good road we’d be there in less than 2 hours.

Unfortunately for the most part Highway one is one lane in each direction, there is no way to travel at the kind of speeds you can reach on the Interstates.  As we got further and further out along the road I began to do the maths and realise that we were going to be getting back to Clearwater quite late.

The problem is that the further you go, the less you want to turn around.  You are so close to Key West you just want to keep going.  I would have liked to make it there by sunset, but we were still 20 miles away when it started to get dark.  In the end we made it to Key West at around 7pm, about 3 hours after leaving Coral Castle.

We knew that even if we turned around immediately and headed back it would be 2am at the earliest when we’d reach Clearwater.   We decided to find the Southernmost point in the Continental US, and we did, almost by accident.  We came to a T Junction and went right instead of Left and there it was.

We took some pictures and then turned the car around and headed home.   We stopped for Dinner, filled up with Gas and were on the road to Clearwater by 8.30pm.

Sandra drove until we made it back to the Mainland, then I took over.  Once you get onto the Interstates you really gobble up the roads.  With Cruise control set we just had to sit back and steer, and try to keep the IPOD playing through the FM tuner without local stations butting in.

Of course driving for 6 hours to get home after you’ve already been driving for 3 hours isn’t clever.  It’s madness.  But I wanted to drive to Key West and now it’s done. Incidently It wasn’t as great a drive as I’d hoped. Both sides of the road have been over developed.  For the most part the only thing to see is motels, restaurants and shops selling junk.   Next time we go to Key West, we’re flying.

Still, it was a thanksgiving weekend to remember.