Molly and I went to see this neat Coral Castle.
The story goes that ED Leedskalnin who was jilted by the love of his life built this castle and dedicated it to her. Being of smaller frame, 5 feet tall and weighing 100 pounds, without any help and using only simple tools he carved and moved tons of coral rock.
Ed originally built the castle in Florida City on an acre of land that he purchased for $12.00 but in 1936 a subdivision was proposed for the area and Ed fearing the loss of his privacy he moved the entire castle 10 miles north to Homestead where he purchased 10 acres of land. Ed used the chassis of an old Republic truck on which he laid two rails and pulled by a friend with a tractor. Ed did much of his work at night and no one actually saw him load or unload the trailer.
Throne Room.
Bath Tub - the tub was lined with concrete because coral is porous and would not hold water.
The Cooker - The cooking pot is the rear end housing of an old Ford. It hangs on a pulley riding on a rail. The food is placed in the container, which seals itself when taken off the stand and pushed over the fire. The sealed container actually acts like a pressure cooker. It was used to cook hotdogs for the school visits to view the castle.
Molly is being a good sport and sitting in one of the coral chairs.
The upper floor was Ed's living quarters and the lower level was the tool room.
The swamp buggy is a vehicle that was designed to navigate the Everglades and was used in its development as well as for hunting and off road transportation.
As will happen hunters would gather to compare stories and buggy designs. These stories led to challenges and races between the different buggies which usually took place through a muddy bog on Raymond Bennett's potato farm. The first organized race took place on Mr. Bennett's farm around 1943 between a dozen or so hunters. The potato patch has since evolved into the Florida Sports Park and is now known as the "Mile of Mud". The depth of the mud is hard to gauge because of the brown swamp water that covers every inch of the track. It is estimated to be about 5 or 6 feet deep in the deepest section which is commonly referred to as the "Sippy Hole".
There were lots of Jeeps racing too and here are some of them going through the Sippy Hole.
And of course some didn't make it.
During intermission we even saw a flying lawnmower.
What race would be complete without a Queen and her court. At the end of the race the winner gets to dunk the Queen into that lovely muddy swamp water....yuck! Makes me wonder why anyone would want the job of Queen. Now in this sport you can't be afraid to get a little wet.
There were some amazing machines and some very skilled drivers but for the most part it was a lot of good old boys just having fun. It was a great race and we had so much fun watching it.
