Photo Section Index

A Couple of Tourist Attractions.

Today, we'll visit a couple of venerable Florida tourist attractions. First, the Monkey Jungle.  Founded in 1933, they used to put bumper stickers on the cars that visited, and you'd see them all around the country. The park was created in 1933 by Joseph and Grace DuMond.  Joseph's dream was to create a American colony of free-roaming monkeys.  But Congress had already been established, so they built a park in Florida. This is Mae, an Orangutan. Orangutans have very expressive faces. They say that an adult Orang can have the intellect of a six year old human, which makes them eligible to become TV network execs. This is Ray, Mae's bro'. This is King, the park's silverback Gorilla. They say they're having trouble finding a mate for King, since he used to be in a circus.  Makes perfect sense when you think about it.... But I wonder if that face doesn't have something to do with it. Say goodbye to the monkeys, now we'll head to Coral Castle. Latvian immigrant Ed  Leedskalnin's 16 year old fiance spurned him the day before their planned wedding, and he spent the rest of his life building this monument to her. This is the bedroom.  Still wondering why she spurned him? This is called the Throne Room. He carved and moved all this stuff by himself using hand tools.  This is the "Moon Fountain." Remarkably, he designed and made all of these pieces before The Flinstones was created. See www.coralcastle.com for the whole story.