I was up and out after about three hours sleep as I finished the Tuesday’s Glenn Beck cartoon. We had a veterans rally with someone who had been with McCain as a P.O.W. Former Governor Buddy Roemer also was part of the travelling bus tour. It went great with lots of flag waving.

Because of our location, we made another early morning starter, a coffee shop named ‘Primary Oven’, rather upset. Attendees took their parking spots at the prime hour folks going to work stop an purchase coffee. I ran over and nabbed some of their business cards to have at our table. After the event I bought one of their wonderful double cinnamon rolls, which was huge, and a glass of milk and settled on their second floor and worked on McCain button ideas. I sketched the above of a corner of the second floor, which includes art.

We went from Kathy Wolf’s to meet up with old friend, Rob Labby, for breakfast. The original idea was to to do that near his home in Century Village in Deerfield Beach. However, Vice-Presidential candidate Joe Biden was giving a campaign speech next to the restaurant. After circumnavigating the Secret Service, it was decided to head to Denny’s. A Denny’s coffee pot is to the left. Later we headed to his home and he showed us a 1988 short he did with actor Bill Daily for Brevard County tourism. It was a great visit with Mr. Labby and we look forward to the next!

On the way home we made many stops at the Jupiter Lighthouse, the House of Refuge, The Desert Inn, etc. We ended up at The Catfish Place for dinner. The wrapped silverware is to the left.

We headed south to be a part of the Clyde Butcher Muck-A-Bout. We took backroads to get there. A stop we made was at The Cool Place, an ice cream shop in Bartow. There Sandra and I had sundaes (See above).

For dinner we stopped at the 75 year old Flora and Ella’s in LaBelle. I had great Southern fried chicken and Sandra loved the chicken and dumplings. We also finally found pecan pie. we’ve been looking for a year and a half for home made pecan pie throughout Florida and during our trips to North Carolina, New Orlenas and throughout Arkansas. All of the restaurants we stopped at had pecan pie provided by a store of food service. Flora and Ella’s has folks come in at 4:30 every morning to make new pies. It was great!

Above is one of the antique cash registers and adding machines at Flora and Ella’s.

We later settled in Everglades City to get ready for swamp trompin’ Friday.

Headed over to Tampa for the Tampa Comic Con for an Inkslinger gathering with Jim Fern and Sioux Hart. A few were part of the event. Fran Matera was showing his great work. To the left is a panel from one of the strips I picked up. Fran was also helping friend Geoff Brenneman raise money for a project Geoff is working on. Greg Vondruska, with his colleague Dan Boyd, also was showing his many comics. Click here to see his work.

Later I met with Inkslinger, John Stevens, for a meal outside Tampa at ABC Pizza where we talked about digital painting, goals in life and politics. The illustration above is a corner of the restaurant.

Sandra and I headed to Orange County. Her for a conference. Me for a haircut at Jim’s Barber Shop. Unfortunately for me, Jim’s ill and his shears are taking a break, too.

That gave me time I didn’t expect, so I hit the bookstores. Picked up lots of goodies. Below are the best covers. All books I’ll probably never read. I’ll just admire the covers. I really like the layout of ‘Native Stone’. The Frank Lloyd Wright-ish structure with teh red tree-ish image and the placement of the T-square, also with red. All that imagery and the artist puts a watch on the guy. Interesting choices. I wonder why. The artist who created the very bottom art put no watch on the pirate. It seems to me pirates would want to know what time it is…Just wondering…

Later I picked up Sandra and headed to Sweet Tomatoes in Altamonte Springs. There we joined our good friends G.K. Sharman and James L. Saunders. Also joining the healthful buffet was my father. Good talk and plenty of cooking hints from Mr. Saunders.

We made our way onto the Big Cypress Reservation to the Billie Swamp Safari. Above is a croc that lives around the swamp buggy ride we took.

Above is a tree, with bucket chapeau, I sketched along the swamp buggy trail.

We also took an airboat ride. I sketched these as the airboat roared along.

Billie Swamp Safari is a terrific place that all Floridians and non-Floridians should make a must-stop!

Later we had dinner with friends Kathy Wolfe, Phyllis Malinksy and the ever-jolly Rob Labby at Tropical Acres Restaurant. Above is Rob entertaining us all.

We made our way south to Clewiston for research and exploring. We made a lunch stop at the Orange Box Cafe in Frostproof. The restaurant is part of Frostproof Groves orange juice packing and juice palnt. Above are cabbage palms I saw outside the restaurant window.

We made it down to Clewiston and stayed at the Clewsiton Inn. We learned when we got there that the legendary ‘Old South Bar-B-Q’ had been revived by the owners of the Clewiston Inn and made a part of their restaurant. Better yet is that the owners were able to secure one of the original cooks from ‘Old South’. WHAT GREAT BAR-B-Q!!!!!

Our first stop during our Volusia County tour was Ponce Preserve. It’s a park that has a combo of opportunities to experience the original natural Florida tidal area of this part of the east coast. See the site for details. It’s a GREAT park and well worth the trip whether you take the boardwalk, the natural trail or head out to the beach.

Our next stop was Sugar Mill Gardens. It is the site of a sugar mill, a theme park, a Civil War site and a Seminole Indian War site. It covers it all. There is no doubt ‘Bongoland’ is the most interesting. I’ll let this site explain it as I run out of time to type all of this. By the way, I counted 7 dinosaurs. Above is one of them.

We continued our Volusia County tour with a stop at the Daytona Beach Museum of Arts and Sciences.WHATTAPLACE!!!!Everyting from greek statues (See right) to antique cars to Florida history to pirates to actual train cars to….It’s an amazing place!We made a stop at Zeno’s, a favorite of ours,

We next stopped at a favorite of our in Volusia County, Zeno’s. They have two locations. We stopped at the one on A1A. Got ice cream and salt water taffy. Above is cover of the box of the saltwater taffy we picked up. I love the historical photos.

After Zeno’s we wandered up A1A to Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area. The park, that includes beach access, is named for the Florida troubador, Gamble Rogers, who sang and told stories of Florida’s history, environment and a series of characters that dwelled in our state in the fictional area of Ocklawaha County.I got to meet and work with Gamble back in the ’80s when I was working with Florida music and storytellers festivals and groups. He was a sight to behold. A very calm and steady performer. I’m reading a number of books about Dean Martin. Gamble was the easygoing come-what-may Dean Martin on stage.It was a tragedy he died in the surf at the very spot where this park is. He was trying to save another person caught in the rough waters. We happened to be there when there was a red flag warning of the rough surf and dangerous waters at the beach as it was when Gamble died. The difference now is an actual red flag atop a pole flapping in the wind, see the sketch to the right. At the time of Gamble’s death there were no flags there. Too bad the story of Gamble’s death isn’t at the park. I felt like chasing after the people in the surf and warning them of the dangers and of the reason why the park area is named after Gamble.

We finished our trip in Marion County and had dinner at Lena’s Restaurant, where you can have a “whale of a meal”.To the left is the papertowel holder on every table.

We spent the day visiting Sarasota and the bookstores there. From the old Charlie’s Newstand (or whatever it’s called today) to Parker Books to Helen’s Books to The Main Street Bookstore. We had  a very good lunch at El Greco Cafe. I drew the drawing on the right looking out the window to this building down the street.

We drove out of Sarasota and through Parrish into Plant City where we met my Aunt and long time friends Susie and Russell Noel and their family at Fred’s Market where we had another Fred’s outstanding meal. Many thanks to them for joining us. Getting home we had cake, ice cream and presents.

We had lunch with Tom and Glenda Armstrong at the 1945 created Linger Lodge. Known for it’s fine Southern fare, it’s been recently bought by others and now has a “chef”. The food showed it. Worse, no fried chicken that I was looking forward to.

Though less than what was once there, the Linger Lodge can still boast quite a collection of stuffed critters that decorate throughout. To the left is a mounted water moccasin that hung near our table. Just above us on the wall was a ten foot gator. There is also a bar that has no mirrors from which to sit across. Instead various snakes and wild animals stare back at you. That seems like a great opportunity to me. One who gets tipsy might experience something else still.

Though the food was average we had a great time with the Armstrongs.