Fort Lauderdale
It has been a long time since my last blog entry. A series
of dubious wifi connections and late night check-ins conspired against me, I
suppose. I had this fantasy that once I got to Disney World I would be staying
in the same place for a few days so I could catch up then. More on that folly
in a later blog.
I wanted to mention some time we spent at Kitty Hawk in
North Carolina. This little place is along the coast and quite small. You often
drive along with the sea on both sides of you. Kitty Hawk, of course, is famous
for the first successful flight of the Orville brothers. Actually, this event occurred
in what is now Kill Devils Hill, but with the closest town at the time being
Kitty Hawk it became the famous name attached to the famous event. I suppose
when Kill Devils Hill was incorporated there was a determined decision to not
associate the famous event with a place called Kill Devils Hill. I have no idea
what the origin of this name is, and I am okay with that.
The First Flight National Monument has an information with a
full scale replica of the successful aeroplane and there are talks every half
hour by Rangers that are clearly enthusiastic as well as educated in this
field. There is the pre-requisite walk through display and the required gift
shop, but it is when you leave the centre and go out into the field when you
feel the magic of the place.
Beyond the replicas of the Wright Brothers’ hangar and
workshop (in which they lived), beyond the marker that stands to commemorate
the founding of the National Park, beyond the stones that indicate the length of
each attempt to fly that day lies the obelisk-inspired monument on top of a
fill that makes it clear where lift off took place.
Eric and I walked the length of the flight to the monument
and then back again. It is easy to recognise the enormity of the accomplishment
even in this day of five hours to Europe. All this because of two guys who
fixed bicycles.
As we walked back to the centre to get respite from the heat
before returning to our car we heard another sound among the birds and people
talking: an airplane. Just beyond the trees next to the path of the first
flight there is a small airport. This seemed fitting to us.
Savannah was like a grand old dame who was a little more
tired than her sister Charleston, but she was far from worn. Like any good
southern hostess she was charming, welcoming and still very much full of life.
I loved Savannah from the moment we drove up to the Foley House where we stayed. The cacophony of cicada hidden among the Spanish
moss was constant as was the humidity and heat. Nobody walked quickly or ran. I
tend to walk fast but the weather here makes that impossible.
As you make your way through the historic district your path
down the street is interrupted every other block or so by a grand old park.
These provide respite from the sun. One of these parks, Oglethorpe Park, was a
block from our guest house and was where they filmed the ‘box of chocolates’
scenes in Forest Gump. As I made my way slowly through these streets at night I was
reminded of Florence, where so many people just walk through the streets
quietly as they enjoy simply being in such wonderful place.
Savannah considers itself to be one of the most haunted
cities in the country, so we had to take a ghost tour. Actually, what we took
was advertised as a ghost walk and a ghost hunt. Some of you may know that I
was once a part of a paranormal investigation group back in the day. I was the
true sceptic. I was the annoying guy who kept debunking things and not getting
excited by orbs. But I always hoped we would find something that I could not
explain. Our tour of the Sorrel-Weed House started off interestingly enough. Apparently
it was in the library of this house that General Lee began his leadership of
the Civil War. We learned of the affair of the house owner with one of the
servants and how his wife caught them in the act. The wife threw herself out a
second floor window head first into the flagstones below and the servant hanged
herself. I think the husband remarried. Hmph.
So, we looked for contact with the two ghosts of the
Sorrel-Weed House. Our guide handed out EMF detectors and did not explain their
use or why they are used and here we were, about twenty people, waving EMF
detectors in various parts of the building.
Meh. With this crowd, I would not have come out to play
either.
There was one moment where Eric and I got a little excited
about a particular corner in the old carriage house where the servant hanged
herself. I tried to find electrical
sockets and other evidence of a manmade electromagnetic field in the room but
to no avail. However, after the tour I checked outside the building and found
some transponders near the site. Oh well. So much for ghost hunting.
We also heard some ghost stories involving our guest house.
Apparently the Foley House was built on a very large Jewish graveyard. I am not
sure this explains misplaced dishes and table cloths, but there you have it.
We left the tranquil and elegant Savannah for what we knew
would be a very different experience at Disney World.
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