Cedar Key | Tin Can Tourists!!

As if fate was trying to tempt me, look what I find in the Gainesville Sun the day after I write about Walmart RV's:  Tin Can Tourist Camp to be "Resurrected."

Oh man, I really want to go to this, but I don't think I can get away.  Tin Can Tourist Sites are really cool - they get their start in the early 1900's as the US road system is being built and cars are becoming cheaper.  It becomes the embodiment of the American Dream - the ability, at a moment's notice, to travel to any destination under your own power (vehicular power) and travel to unknown places (mainly National and State Parks - which are also taking shape at the same time).  The name comes from the tin cans used in the long distance traveling.  Later, with the advent of the airplane age, sleeker all aluminum trailers are made and the tin can begins to represent the metal trailer hitched to the car.  Even further later, these turn into RV's and such, and we welcome them on the Florida campus for every home football game (Yes, tailgating comes directly from the Tin Can Tourist phenomenon in the early 20th Century).

I guess I will start planning for next year!

(Image by: Gainesville Sun's Staff Photographer, Doug Finger)

Walmart RV's

I overheard a conversation in one of my other classes about a girls father, who has retired and decided to travel the US in an RV.  Something I think I'd like to do one day, but there was one caveat.  Her dad is only stopping at Walmart's.  Yes, apparently there is a whole sub-culture of folks who travel around in a "Walmart RV Community."  Walmarts are all over, and they have huge parking lots, they make a natural, and free, place to stop.  Doing some quick internet research shows there are some pages that offer strategies:

"Many Wal-Mart stores now have "No Overnight RV Parking" signs. Be sure to circle the lot and check ALL parking lot entrances"

"If you have a wife like mine (Wal-Mart road atlas in hand) she always needs something from the store. If we stay in a Super Wal-Mart we always hit the deli for a good chicken dinner with potato salad and cole slaw."

"We didn't need swimming pool, showers or any other amenities that come with the fee or the extra time it takes to get checked in. So, it's not always a matter of $$. As in this case, sometimes it is just more convenient."

Apparently the 5 minutes to check in at a hotel is quite inconvenient, so instead, I'm going to buy an RV (not cheap), and fill it up with about 3,203 gallons of gas, because it's easier.  I'm all for interesting travel and road trips - in fact, I'm totally into the Tin Can Tourists of old, but avoiding the national parks, avoiding the parks in general, avoiding main street, and causing a crapload of extra traffic is not very sustainable, IMO.

Swiss Banks and Control of Clothes.

Came across this article about the Swiss Bank UBS:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Swiss-bank-UBS-to-change-apf-2483092573.html?x=0

I've certainly heard of dress codes and what not, but this is a very strict code - down to the color of your underwear!  What's interesting is the context of the bank's desire to "set the table" of the bank itself in the dress code of the employees.  To quote: "He said the bank would issue a pared-down booklet with more general guidelines on how to impress customers with a polished presence and sense of Swiss precision and decorum."  So the visual appeal of the employees should reflect a sense of pride and decorum?  I buy that - to a degree.  I mean I think part of what you look like creates a visual introduction, much like a street with no tree and cracked sidewalks might indicate it's unsafe.  Improving simply the streets, or washing the graffiti has gone a long way to restore certain places - so might improving the dress code at a place of business.  But what I really want to know, is how did they check for the red underwear?

The Sedan Chair

While reading an assignment from John Urry's "Mobilities" (a great book), I came across this concept of "sedan chairs."  The context of the reading is about the social history of "walking."  According to Urry's history, walking from place to place, especially in urban areas becomes more popular in the mid-eighteenth century as cities begin to smoothly pave their streets.  Prior to this, the streets were muddy and messy and filled with many nice elements that you wouldn't want to smell like.  If they were paved, it was typically with cobblestones that had been rutted from thoroughfares - this wasn't exactly the easiest way to travel especially if your ankles weren't properly supported.  However, as streets were more smoothly paved with concrete mixes, walking became easier and more accepted for most class of people save for one - the elite.  These folks had walkers who carried them across those cobbled streets above all the crap so to speak.  Urry suggests that it was the elderly and woman that used these sedan chairs.  The chairs sat in the hallways of the great houses, typically near the doorway, so the users could simply walk over, sit down, and wait for the walker to come over enclose the chair and pick it up to walk to wherever.  This covered chair was referred to as a sedan. 

In about 1929 or so, the first car was built with seats in the back that had direct access for the passengers, but no driving was involved (at least not physically), so they were called "sedans."  Possibly a connection?  Also - I wonder if those chairs I've seen in my Mom's living room, near the doorway, that seemingly have no purpose, but that I'm not allowed to sit on, are also some remnant of the sedan chair age...

The Fernery

1.11.11 -

An auspicious date, today. 

So I decided last weekend to a take a little side trip and travel down US 17.  Why US 17?  Well this stems from something I may post on another day about Florida's development history and how it is tied to the railroad and how the railroad, in many cases and places, set the canvas for the road system in Florida today.  US 17 from the State Line to Punta Gorda nearly follows the exact route of the Southern Atlantic Railway.  There is an inherent and "un-ordinary" history of Florida that is told throughout this corridor.  So I decided to try out a portion from Green Cove Springs to Winter Park - a portion of which is part of the Florida Scenic Highway Program (River of Lakes Scenic Highway).

The corridor lived up to what I thought it would be - elements of the railroad, old depot buildings, other buildings that are organized around what would have been the depot, but now are seemingly pointed in the "wrong" direction relative to the street, and other cultural legacies.  One that took my breath away was somewhere just south of Pierson.

Florida has many histories and this one in particular involves ferneries.  Or plant nurseries that specifically cultivate and sell ferns.  Beginning in the late 1800's, these fern farms supplied much of the florist industry with those wonderful accents you receive when someone buys you flowers.  Pierson in particular (known as the Fern Capital of the World) was a "hotbed" of these nurseries.  The beauty of the temperate native landscape in this area of Florida is the natural shading and wind protection Live Oaks provide for the plants underneath.  This was a perfect "natural" location for ferns to grow with minimal maintenance.

Today you can see both the more cultivated farms with their shade structures and irrigation systems, and the natural oak hammocks areas.  But be warned, if you are used to seeing a "normal" Florida oak hammock, it's quite unusual to see the very soft, and bright green, of fern ground cover disappearing into the shadows of the oaks.

See for yourself:

A "Natural" Fernery near Pierson, FL directly off US 17

The Large Oak Hammock (as seen from my car window) with the Fernery groundcover