Saturday, November 24, 2012

Anthing Goes Saturday - Florida

Tourists have been flocking to sunny, beautiful Florida for decades; today's pictures are all from long before Disney moved in.

Here's a nice shot from Miami Beach in 1952. The slide says it was December... imagine living in some frozen state up north; instead of dealing with icy roads, burst water pipes and snow-clogged driveways, you could spend your Christmas lounging on the warm sand under a blue sky, with the relaxing sound of ocean waves. Paradise.


This Kodachrome slide was labeled "Florida Campground", and that's all I know. It is certainly from the 1950's... I love the vintage trailers and campers, and those wonderful cars of course - how about that "woody" station wagon. Just visible is a blue lagoon, perhaps one of the many freshwater springs that are found all over the Sunshine State. Let's go swimming with manatees!


Monkey Jungle is a 30-acre wildlife park (founded in 1933!) in the Miami area, featuring hundreds of primates. Folks can't get enough of chimpanzees acting like people. This fellow (let's call him "Cornelius") is obviously involved in NASA's "Project Gemini" (this being 1965). His rocket is made from the finest galvanized steel and and an upside-down trash can. Cornelius definitely has the right stuff!


6 comments:

K. Martinez said...

So this is what Cornelius was doing before he met and started working with Zira?

fuzzhead said...

No way that trash can will survive re-entry.

Chuck said...

Dibs on the Buick!

Rich T. said...

If we imagine they're all from the same photographer and viewed in sequence, I love the direction this vacation went!

Anonymous said...

That may be called a "camp ground", but those trailers have not been moved for a while. Notice the plants, fences and pink flamingos placed around them. I think these are permanent home sites (trailer park).

CoxPilot

Anonymous said...

I love the campground picture. I'll bet that orange-striped one in the foreground is still sitting there. This just screams north-central Florida, around one of the lakes or springs, and yeah, people used them as winter homes and left them installed permanently, or lived year-round in their very own tin cans... and still do...