My Mom decided back in the fall that she wanted to celebrate her ten year remission from cancer, in a warm and sunny location during the winter this year, and when my sister told her that she and Brad and my nephew and nieces were planning a trip to Orlando during spring break, Mom decided that would be the perfect time and place to go as well.  When she asked me to go with them, I decided it would be a great opportunity to do some rock and mineral collecting and some photo shoots as well. With the problems everyone was having getting through the airline security lines and anticipating taking my rockhounding tools with me, knowing what problems it would create, I opted to drive down instead. One night at work, I figured out the mileage roundtrip,  and figured out my fuel consumption would average out to the same cost as airline tickets round trip. So I planned my vacation the week before my Kentucky Mine Dig weekends, taking off eight days for the trip. Monday the 14th, we woke up to five inches of snow on the ground and I sure hoped this wasnt going to be a treacherous drive down, but my prayers were answered the next morning when Missy and I left town mid morning to a cool but sunny day.

I decided to take Highway 185 south through Potosi and Farmington over to I-55, as mapquest showed that to be twenty miles less than the normal route I take of I-44 to Eureka and then over to I-55 at Barnhart and Peveley. Unfortunately, I didnt check MODOT`s website regarding road construction and found out the hard way that Washington County road crews were replacing culverts on Hwy 185 not far south of town, and within fifteen minutes of departing town, I was soon rolling to a ten minute delay and then yet another ten minute delay at the second construction site only five miles further south near Indian Creek. After being assured there were no further road repairs going on along 185, I continued south and soon rolled down the ramp to I-55 south and headed south toward Sikeston. There I picked up I-57 east toward Charleston, where I normally take Hwy 60 over to the Illinois steel bridge over the Mississippi River and then the Ohio River bridge into Kentucky. However as I neared Charleston, I observed detour signs that indicated that the Illinois bridge was closed to all traffic, so I drove on to Cairo and crossed the Ohio River Bridge into Kentucky, stopping at Wickcliffe to grab something to eat and as I was paying for the food, the cashier told me that the bridge had suffered extensive damage from a barge hit and would likely be closed for a year due to repairs.

We continued east into Paducah and then south on I-24 toward Tennessee. I stopped in the Fort Campbell area to gas up, and found prices there a bit higher than up here, at 3.54 a gallon, and figured up that I was getting 25 mpg on the first leg of the trip down. We rolled through Nashville, first greeted by the heavy traffic around 3 pm and then the Batman Building came into view….

 

The heavy traffic continued for about an hour south of Nashville, and the temps warmed up as we dipped south toward the Georgia line. We climbed up and over the curvy mountain range just north of Chattanooga and saw many waterfalls going up and coming down, one even shooting water out of a bluff wall about midway up…I didnt get a chance to shoot it nor the neat looking huge railroad trestle in the curve halfway up, but they were both very neat looking. I stopped a few minutes later tho, at a beautiful Tennessee rest area which sat on the Tennessee River, that backed up into a small lake there…and after letting Missy out to stretch her legs a bit, I snapped a few images of some nice sunbeams over the lake as the sun was beginning to set…

 

…which just got better and better…

 

We got back on the road and picked up I-75 south just prior to darkness and I started down the mountain into Atlanta in full darkness…as I drove through the suburbs of Atlanta on 285, I discovered that southern people have a real fascination with truck drivers being pulled over by troopers, to the point that all five lanes of traffic come to a stop so the drivers can get a good look at it. I thought I had seen everything in Missouri…I was like whateva…..

We rolled into my buddy Tad`s driveway about 9:30 pm and stopped for the night…Roger and Tad graciously putting me and Missy up for the night in their beautiful home in Mableton. After Missy met their dogs, Tad showed us to our apartment in the finished basement and we sat and talked a bit so I could unwind a bit after the long drive down. He showed me my bedroom and inside was a beautiful four poster bed, that sat very high, the mattress coming up to my belly button, which would be approximately 48 inches high. He asked if I needed anything else and I said, ”  a stepladder maybe ? “….he said he could prob find one if I really needed one but I figured I could prob climb up just fine, and I was indeed able to. 🙂

The next morning Missy and I slept in a bit, and visited with Tad and checked my emails and then Missy and I headed over to Watkinsville, to visit with a new rock and mineral dealer friend, Chet Karwoski, who I had been talking to for about a year regarding the Diamond Hill Mine, and skeletal quartz specimens. Up to recent times, Chet had owned and operated the mine, only recently selling the mine to a friend of his, and we had discussed possibly trading some crystals, so I brought some poker chips and druse quartz down for him. We had agreed to meet mid afternoon and about 3 pm Missy and I arrived at his beautiful rural home and visited with him and his wife Gail, who is an author of childrens books. We talked about various mines and minerals and crystals a while before getting into the actual show and tell and trade. Chet has some gorgeous large specimens of skeletal quartz in his front yard, four of them shown below that required a small crane to place into position in his yard….

..this one a very pretty specimen with both the iron oxice stained orange crystals and the black manganese coating on the crystals…

and this one a close up of the large specimen above…..

…we traded for some smaller crystals, most of them the pretty skeletal quartz, but I also selected a few of the amethyst and smokey quartz crystals too. 

Diamond Hill Mine used to be a neat mine with a huge tailing pile area to dig through that produces some very beautiful smokey quartz and amethyst crystals and huge plates and chunks, like those pictured above, of skeletal quartz. Its located about two hours north of Atlanta near Abbeville, South Carolina.  New ownership since my trip, has changed much of what it used to be since Chet sold it. Since I didnt have enough time this trip and since it had rained recently with the mud making it nearly impossible to dig there,  I decided I would come back, but have since then changed my mind.

Missy and I left early the next morning, before Tad and Roger woke up, and headed toward Orlando, hoping to arrive mid afternoon. We hit some construction stretches on I-75 through southern Georgia and quickly found out that most travelers driving through there, dont slow down for the construction zones, and if one does slow down for them, one can quickly get run over. It was also common to drive to nearly the end of the zones before coming up on crews actually performing work, and even then, the work crews were often located in the middle of the highway with a concrete wall between traffic and personnel and equipment, or way off to the side  and off the roadways. I really didnt understand the need to slow way down for that, since the crews were well out of the way of moving traffic.

We stopped in southern Georgia at a lovely rest area and I photographed some pretty trees with the Spanish Moss hanging off every branch, while Missy stretched her legs.

..and its even found in some of the pine trees down there…and boy are there a lot of pine trees in Georgia….

 

We took off and drove on down into Florida, and discovered in the northern part of Georgia that gas was a bit high priced, 3.68 a gallon, and I was glad I had filled up at Atlanta before leaving that morning, 3.43 a gallon there…as we drove down through Gainesville, where I stopped and filled the tank at 3.34 a gallon, the temps were quickly climbing into the 80`s. I called Mom to let her know the progress we were making and told her it was nice and warm down there too. I rechecked my mileage and discovered I was still getting 25 mpg even with the additional 200 lbs of rocks and minerals loaded up the day before at Chet`s.

We drove on down to Orlando, coming in the back way on Hwy 27 south from the Florida Turnpike, which I picked up just south of Ocala. The turnpikes I found out, dont cost alot of money and are very well maintained and nice to drive on. As we drove south on 27, we drove through several smaller cities and spotted a few brush fires as we approached the Kissimmee area, a couple of the fires looking like they were burning hot and heavy, columns of smoke visible for miles. I didnt have time to go check them out but did spot a fire station just off the highway near one of the fires, and saw that the doors were all open and not one truck left inside the station.

We arrived at the Westgate Resorts a few minutes later and entered the grounds past helpful and friendly security guards to the Town Hall and Welcome Center. I had talked to the condo suite owner, Steve Lebaron, on the way down and he had advised that I could likely check in early, as long as the resort had one of his suites cleaned up and ready to go by the time I arrived.  I parked out in front of the Town Center, locked Missy in the truck with the air conditioner on full blast, and walked in to the front desk and told the young lady there that I had reservations for a four day stay and would like to check in early if they had a suite available.

The Westgate Resorts is a time share Condo Suites Resort, one that has many activities for folks of all ages on their grounds, several buildings with condo suites of all sizes from a simple one bedroom suite to four bedrooms within each building on the property. At this particular resort, there were about sixty buildings on the property, several small lakes, about fifteen swimming pools, tennis courts, and a neat looking mini golf course that was laid out around the main lake behind the Town Hall, with statues of dinosaurs mixed in with the palm trees and putting greens. There were also a few deli`s and restaurants on the grounds, despite the many restaurants located on both sides of Hwy 192 not a half mile outside the entrance to the resort.  I took this image of the resort the next morning….

and the next image shows the mini golf course and one of the dinosaur statues as well as some of the unique swan looking paddle boats tied up at the dock on the far side of the small lake…

..and the next image shows many of the other buildings housing condo units….and the swan boats too….

…and even more buildings in the next image….

…well I wish I could say that the check in process was nice and smooth, but as warned by Steve, the Front Desk experience can be a nightmare and it was for me…all I wanted to do was check in, settle in, and get a short nap in before grabbing some dinner that evening. I was looking forward to checking into a quiet condo suite that Steve had arranged for me, yet the young female at the desk opted to instead assign me to a poolside suite…I`m guessing now that she must have been having a bad day and just decided to take it out on me by doing so. I pointed out to her that it was not the building that Steve had arranged for me and got nowhere FAST with her regarding it.

She then started to push the daily activities that are available there at the resort, but again, as previously warned by Steve, I informed her that my schedule was completely full for the four days there and I wouldnt need anything further from the resort except peace and quiet. The last part of my statement to her didnt seem to be heard or absorbed by her at all, as I later discovered. I was directed to a man down the counter, since she was having no luck getting me to accept the resort policy of adding activities to my schedule. I told him that I had no need for anything more than peace and quiet while there and he pointed me to yet another desk and I was informed that the young lady manning it would help me to my room. She turned out to be  a lot nicer to deal with than the first young female and him combined, and a young man who was with her, asked me for my room number and pulled out a map and showed me in great detail how to get to my condo suite and once she provided the keys,  I was on my way. My whole check in experience took about thirty minutes and I was looking forward to a nice shower and nap.

I drove over to the suite, the directions provided by the nice young man at the third desk accurate and detailed. I parked and took a few bags inside to check it out and turn the air on, then went back out and hooked Missy up and took her out of the truck and inside to get her settled in. It was a beautiful one bedroom suite, I quickly learned…

..here is the living room and the bedroom can be seen to the left side in a separate room…

..and there was a spacious bathroom to the left of the bed, with two entrances, one from the living room and one from the bedroom, with a nice glassed walkin shower, jacuzzi tub, and sink and toilet….nice tiled floors and beautifully furnished…

..have to say I was quite impressed with the suite itself..just not the location of the suite…would have rather been in the quiet building that Steve had originally arranged for me to be in, as it was in a more quiet location and I`m sure I would have been happier and less stressed in it. One would think that a resort would do its very best to make visitors happy and put them where they want to be placed…its called Customer Service….but I`m beginning to think some businesses just dont have a clue what that term means anymore…or they dont care….

Well I stepped into the shower and turned the hot water on, and wow, let me tell you, I absolutely LOVED the shower nozzle in that walk in shower !!!  The water flowed thick and heavy out of that nozzle like a lava flow…it felt GREAT and just like a heavy duty jacuzzi spray would hit your back…so nice after my long trip down, that I just stood there and let it flow down on to my shoulders and down my back…felt so good, I just couldnt move for several long minutes….time just stood still….it felt SOOOOOO GOOOODDDDDD…..twenty minutes later I stepped out and over to the couch and I laid down and took a nice 90 minute nap…Missy stretched out on the cool tile floor and pretty soon we were both out like a light….

Friday morning we woke up to a nice sunny 65 degrees with no humidity and I walked over to the Town Center to check my email. The resort advertises that it has a business center where one can check their email and print out tickets and schedules…what it doesnt tell you til you arrive is that they charge you twenty cents a minute and 75 cents a page to print…as much email as I have, I had to check mine so I furthered their cause a bit more while there. I had been in contact with a few models before driving down and a couple of them wanted to shoot with me over at Fort DeSoto Park Beach near St Petersburg, so I made arrangements to meet them there around noon, then headed back to get Missy and head that way, as I had an hour drive to get there.

The last time I had been to Fort DeSoto Beach was about ten years ago when I photographed several guys for a buddy of mine who needed some advertising work done and we were fortunate to get some nice sunset shots done while there. That was the one thing I didnt see while down there this year, were sunsets, just clear skies each day while there.

I finally made it to Fort DeSoto Beach by 1 pm, after taking some wrong turns on the way and stopping for directions at a gas station…when in doubt, stop and ask…I was only thirty blocks from where I was supposed to be when I finally stopped to ask…and Justin, a hot Abercrombie model I had been talking to, was patiently waiting for me when I finally arrived. We met out on the east side and then drove down to the west side to begin shooting..I let Missy out for a walk and then put her back in the truck and turned the ac on full blast and locked her in…there is only one dog beach at Fort DeSoto and we were no where near it at that end…we took off walking down to the area where I had been ten years ago and found many people out there on the beach ahead of us…several photographers shoot there on a daily basis, so we were nothing new to them…we walked to the far end and around the corner from it we found some nice sand dunes and grass to start shooting at….Justin is a tall and muscular young man with long blonde hair and looks alot like a young Brad Pitt…

 

The one thing I forgot to grab and take with me was my suntan lotion…and by the end of the day I remembered it…oh well, at least I remembered to bring the aloe vera in case I did sunburn…a few hours after working with Justin, Greg finally joined us, and we shot a few photos at the pier and then moved up the beach to a deserted stretch near the park office. It turned out to be a good stretch cause there were sand and grassy dunes and a log laying in the grass, a section of fence and I could pose the guys with the Sunshine Gateway Bridge in the background easily enough. Plus when I started shooting them in the fire gear, there was a huge flag flying at the office and it positioned well behind them, as you can see….

..and the bridge looked good behind Justin as well…

…and the water there was a perfect shade of turquoise blue…which matched Greg`s board shorts well….

 

..and he looked stunning in fire gear too…with the bridge behind him….I crossed this bridge a few years ago on a bus, on the way to a cruise ship, and it is a very impressive structure up close and from a distance….

 

….we finished at this location in the park and decided to go grab some dinner..Justin knew a nice Chinese restaurant that wasnt too far away and we went there…the food was great and there was even a fire truck and crew working public relations outside while we were there.  Afterward, I headed back to Kissimmee and the condo suite, arriving after dark. I called Sheriden, my model I was working with the next day over at the beaches on the east coast and made arrangements to meet him on the beach there about 11 am.

The next morning, Missy and I got up early and took off southeast toward the east coast, taking the Florida Turnpike South to Port Lucie, and then driving thru Jenson Beach to get to Stuart. It was a good thing I had researched mapquest a week before, and found a few alternate routes to the beach I was driving to, cause as soon as I got into Stuart and turned east toward the beach, I ran into a roadblock…an art festival held downtown and the main drag, Ocean Blvd, shut down for it. I made a couple of turns and quickly found one of the other routes that took me back to Ocean Blvd and we were on our way again soon after…crossed a couple of bridges over the bays and on to Hutchinson Island, then a right turn on to MacArthur Blvd and south to House of Refuge Beach, which was less than a mile to it. I called Sheriden and found out he was already there and photographing the landscape and seascape there with his new camera. I found a parking spot real quick and backed into it, turned the ac on for Missy and grabbed my camera and went to meet Sheriden.

While waiting for him to grab his swimwear and gear, I shot a few images of the beach…this fisherman taking it easy on the bluff above the water and a nice beach house in the background…

 

 

 

…and the tower is part of the House of Refuge Museum…the bluff is part of the original reef which used to sit further out in the water, dredged out years ago and placed up on the beach to hold the sand in…so there is a sand beach above the rocks as you see here, and….

…a section of sand beach below the reef rocks…which look like a bluff from a distance…

..and looking back the other way…

..one sees a dog running loose and free…yes a dog friendly beach, or at least one without restrictions on dogs here…you see a yellow lab on the beach running toward the water, which is what labs normally do, they love the water…unlike border collies like Missy apparently…we can go out hiking and she runs up and down the creeks but you get her near the ocean and she didnt want to have anything to do with it….

 

…from the other side of the beach house, down near where we started shooting…and we saw alot of fishing going on just off the coast there…grouper fishing I later learned…

and so we walked down the beach a stretch and started shooting…Sheriden is a personal trainer and just getting started modeling…

…I felt fortunate to find him and be able to work with him, very hot guy…plus he is studying to be a firefighter and paramedic…

 

 

…so he looked naturally great in fire gear….more images of him in another post here…

I only had 90 minutes to work with him and we got some great images, then he had to run and work with some more clients…I felt extremely fortunate to get to work with him on such a busy day for him…I went back to the truck and took Missy down to the beach for a few minutes before heading back to the condo…and then stepped across the road to shoot these images of the scenery on the other side of the bay…

 

 

..and then I spotted this person rowing while standing on a surfboard…apparently a popular exercise activity down there…

..I`m going to end here…stay tuned for Part 2….