Winston Salem

April 7, 2010

Marta



Old Salem

Winston Salem

Our whirlwind trip around Florida came to an end the day before Easter as Kathy dropped me off at the airport in Ft. Lauderdale, where I caught a flight up to Charlotte, NC. I was traveling ultimately to Conway, SC to take in a little training for my job at our South Carolina office, but the cheaper priced flight and the opportunity to spend Easter at my Mother’s home in Winston Salem had me headed to Charlotte. Kathy headed back to Key West after dropping me off and taking in a little shopping in Miami.

Michael & Marta

My trip to Winston Salem was uneventful; I arrived at my mother Marta’s place just in time to catch the end of Butler University’s wonderful victory over Michigan State to advance to the National Championship game against Duke in NCAA basketball. What a great run for the little school from my hometown. My father attended Butler and I grew up only a few blocks from the campus, where I spent many hours doing everything from sledding, to attending concerts to crashing frat parties while in high school.



Marta & I grabbed a late dinner at the new Mexican restaurant next door to her condo at Tar Branch Towers before heading home to call it an evening. The next day was Easter and we started the beautiful spring day by heading over to nearby Old Salem to walk around the historic neighborhood.





Old Salem is the restored Moravian settlement dating from the 1700s and is full of restored homes, shops, and other buildings including the Salem Tavern, where George Washington stayed in 1791 and which is still an active restaurant today. In fact, it was packed with people celebrating the Easter holiday.





Our Easter celebration was shared with my sister Marika & her husband Brian, who prepared a wonderful meal highlighted by a honey-baked ham. It was a great afternoon meal which we followed by taking Marta out to see the wholesome family film, “Hot Tub Time Machine”. It was not perhaps, the best holiday choice to take one’s mother to see.

Brian & Marta

Jack

We later met my nephew Patrick, who is a student at Wake Forest for some late Easter Pizza at the Mellow Mushroom. Later yet, and perhaps feeling some small regret at our earlier choice, I took Marta to see the new 3D kids film, “How to Train Your Dragon” which she seemed to enjoy much more than the earlier.

Pat, Marta, Brian & Marika



http://www.oldsalem.org/

West Palm Beach Zoo

April 6, 2010







West Palm Beach Zoo

I am a big fan of Zoos, I realize that some of my friends may feel that zoos are cruel throwbacks that should be abolished, but I can’t seem to help myself. The sense of wonder and the excitement in seeing interesting and rare animals up close helped shape my love of creatures since I first went to the Indianapolis Zoo as a child.





In my mind, I differentiate between good zoos (those accredited by the AZA and which feature good living spaces and well cared-for animals) and bad ones that use animals more for entertainment. Zoos can play a huge role in conservation education and often in actually breeding populations that can help stave off extinction.







One of the better zoos that we have visited lately is the West Palm Beach Zoo at Dreher Park. It was one of the final stops on our Florida getaway. We were passing through on our way to the Ft. Lauderdale airport where I was set to fly up to South Carolina for work.





The zoo is a small, yet intimate zoo that is well-designed and offers great viewing opportunities for the over 1700 animals that are featured. The animals seem to have good sized enclosures, for the most part the zoo features smaller to mid-sized animals. No Elephants, Giraffes, etc, instead they have a wonderful selection of smaller interesting animals like anteaters, tapirs and the like.







The zoo is divided into different areas such as the Florida Trail, which features indigenous creatures, the Australia Trail and the Amazonian Rainforest/ Tiger Falls exhibit. Kathy & I managed to take in all of the zoo and slip out just as it was closing for the day.









There were a couple of really interesting exhibits that we enjoyed a lot, one was the anteater exhibit, where we watched the anteater feeding. It was fascinating as the anteaters searched out there food everywhere, even overturning turtles that were in their enclosure seeking food underneath them. The other crazy thing we witnessed, was when two monkeys got a hold of an iguana ( I guess they are a problem in Palm Beach as well) and commenced to play with it as if it were a toy in a horrific yet spellbinding display.





The monkeys swung the creature by its tail, poked and prodded at it and generally tormented the poor creature for about 15 minutes before it was able to escape and swim to safety, dazed but seemingly ok.

safe!

Palm Beach Zoo

Micanopy to Melbourne Beach

April 3, 2010







Micanopy to Melbourne Beach

Located just up the road from Paynes Prairie, the small historic town of Micanopy is a popular destination for those seeking a quiet, quaint, out of the way step back into time. The town is very small, with the main street a beautiful oak lined street which features a large number of stores selling antiques. After checking out of our campsite and a quick goodbye lunch at the Chipotle Grill next to UF with Dakota, we headed over to take a look at Micanopy before heading east to Melbourne Beach for the next portion of our travels.





Micanopy is such a quaint town, that it has been used as a location for a number of films that needed to capture the feel of the laid back lifestyle. Most recently the film, “Doc Hollywood” which featured Michael J. Fox, was filmed there and the town still remembers it warmly.





Kathy & I perused the antiques stores and went to the small but interesting Historical Museum before getting back on the road and heading over to the coast through the Ocala National Forest. Our destination was Melbourne Beach, where we had decided to get a beachfront hotel and spend a couple of days relaxing on the beach.







We found a cheap, beachfront place in the town of Indialantic, which is one of the beach communities in Melbourne. The weather was beautiful and the beach there was packed with Spring Breakers and surfers, taking advantage of the incredible weather.





In addition to getting a sun burn; we spent time riding our bikes throughout the area, visiting Melbourne Beach and the pier that juts out into the Intercostal waterway. We also visited the office/ visitor center for the Sea Turtle Preservation Society. The stretch of beach along Florida’s east coast is one of the most active sea turtle nesting sites in the world and the STPC helps educate people and has programs designed to protect Sea Turtles.





We also managed to have a wonderful meal at Djon’s Steak and Lobster house. Djon’s is the flagship restaurant of a number of area eateries owned by the family one of our friend Dakota’s good friends. The meal we had there was spectacular and I would highly suggest that visitors to Melbourne Beach take in a meal at Djon’s.



After a couple of great days at the beach, we headed south towards Ft. Lauderdale, meandering leisurely along the shore, stopping at places that looked of interest such as the beautiful visitor center for The Archie Carr National Seashore located near Sebastian Inlet. There we hiked the trail and watched the film in the visitor center, before heading on down the road.









Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge

Sea Turtle Preservation Society

Djon's Restaurants