Like a siren’s song, they call to us.  By day, we are compelled to climb to the very top to gaze out to sea, hoping to see we know not what. In the pitch black of night the unique rhythmic cadence of their flashing beacon signaling out into the unknown is at once haunting and comforting.   

The oldest known lighthouse, the Pharos of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was constructed by the ancient Greeks in the third century B.C. on the islet of Pharos marking the entrance to the major Medierranean port of Alexandria on the western tip of the Nile delta.  Rising 383-440 feet above the delta, it was one of the tallest man-made structures on earth for centuries.  Originally a daytime marker, the Romans later added fire and reflective mirrors for nighttime use.  As commerce and trade in Europe grew throughout the Middle Ages, lighthouses were built along the coasts of France and Italy.  During the competitive European maritime commerce of the 17th and 18th centuries, the number of lighthouses dotting the coastline of Europe increased dramatically.

The lifeblood of colonial America was dependent on maritime commerce.  As colonies grew, 11 lighthouses cropped up to safely guide vessels around dangerous rocks and shoals into the harbors of colonial towns.   

Boston Lighthouse

The first of these was a tower at the entrance to Boston Harbor on Little Brewster Island, built in 1716 and lit by tallow candles.  Accessible today by boat only, tours of this National Historic Landmark are offered June through October.  

Remarkably, the massive masonry stone light tower of the original 1764 Sandy Hook Light in New Jersey is still intact.  While an offshore light has lessened its importance, it still greets vessels entering New York’s busy harbor.      

Colonial lighthouses not ravished by nature were destroyed by the Civil War.  However, their role was so important that new ones were rebuilt on the same sites and many more added in the late 1800s.  To the delight of lighthouse lovers, many picturesque 19th century structures – some operational; others not - remain along America’s coastline and around the Great Lakes.  Made of brick, stone and masonry, distinctively painted in stark white, pitch-black, bright red, or painted in black and white stripes or diamonds, each holds a certain mystique.  We can only imagine what their eye has seen!

Florida’s extensive wrap-around coastline is dotted with historic lighthouses.  The oldest known structure in America, a Spanish watchtower in St. Augustine, appeared on a 1589 map belonging to Sir Francis Drake!  This precise location was so important for protection and navigation that subsequent towers were built on the same site by the English between 1763 and 1784, and the Americans after 1821, only to be washed away by coastal erosion.

St. Augustine Lighthouse

The current St. Augustine Lighthouse was built in 1876, about ¼ mile away from the original Spanish watchtower on more stable land, and is open to the public.  This distinctive black and white spiral banded lighthouse on Anastasia Island is said to be haunted, with good reason. The spirits of the keeper’s young daughters who perished there have been seen by some; the smell of cigar smoke from a keeper who fell to his death while painting the tower is detectable by others.   

While the history of the St. Augustine Lighthouse site is certainly older, the oldest existing lighthouse in Florida is the Cape Florida Lighthouse at the tip of upscale Key Biscayne in bustling Miami.  It, too, is open to the public. 

Cape Florida Lighthouse

Established in 1825, this little lighthouse, peacefully nestled among the sea oats on a sandy beach at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Recreaton Area, has seen its share of violence and tragedy.  During the second Seminole War in 1836, it was under siege by the Indians who murdered the keeper’s family and left the assistant keeper for dead.  His account of his horrifying experience is told in the lighthouse museum.

Sombrero Key Light

Perched atop the submerged coral reefs paralleling the Florida Keys are a series of pile tower lighthouses, skeleton-like structures built in the late 1800s to keep mariners traveling the busy Gulf Stream shipping lanes from straying into the jagged reefs.

Prior to their existence, Spanish galleons traveling northward on the Gulf Stream, heavy with gold and jewels, where blown off course and torn apart by reefs, scattering their bounty along the path of destruction.  Some of their treasure, recovered buried under the sand by legendary Mel Fisher, is on display in the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum.  Similarly, later merchant schooners lost cargo and lives on the reef, leading to the lucrative salvage or wrecking industry in early Key West.

Since their construction, the skeletal arms of these lighthouses – Fowey, Carysfort, Alligator, Sombrero, American Shoal, Sand Key – have sustained ferocious hurricane winds, seen their keepers and their families perish, embraced Cuban and Haitian migrants trying to reach America, alerted against illegal drug boats speeding ashore for secret rendezvous, and mark some of the best snorkeling and recreational dive spots in the world.

Key West Lighthouse

 

The historic Key West Lighthouse is landlocked and open to the public.  The view of quaint Key West from the top is 360° wonderful!  The first lighthouse was built in 1825, only to be destroyed by the violent hurricane of 1848, which killed 14 people sheltering inside. The present tower was built in 1848, but over time the sea built up land around it, rendering it ineffective.

Garden Key Light atop Fort Jefferson

Seventy miles off Key West, perched on top of the brick walls of the remarkable Civil War-era Fort Jefferson is Garden Key Light.  The fascinating fort, appearing out of nowhere, a sliver of red brick appearing where blue sky meets turquoise sea, is a sight to behold on the day-long trip aboard the Yankee Freedom .  The isolated fort, 70 miles from land, is an engineering feat - visually incongruous, eerily isolated, extremely historic.   

Picturesque lighthouses dotting the outer banks of North Carolina belie the navigational challenges that lie offshore.  The lighthouses of Cape Hatteras, Cape Lookout, Cape Fear, Ocracoke Island, Bodie Island – all witnesses to the tragedies of this treacherous navigational hook of perilous shoals wicked currents, fierce winds, and dense, disorienting fog.  Besides the perils of nature encountered along this heavily traveled sea lane, mariners also contended with pirates, most nortorious among them, Blackbeard, who lurked among the coastal inlets, ready to pounce on passing merchant ships. 

During Civil War, the lighthouses of the Outer Banks were caught in a blockade/blockade-running tug of war between the Union and the Confederacy.  As recently as World War II, German U-boats prowled the Carolina coast in search a way to stage a submarine attack on the U.S.  In their efforts they sank so many merchant ships and Navy vessels the waters off the Outer Banks were known as Torpedo Junction. 

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

Marking the easternmost tip of the elbow of the Outer Banks is one of the best known of U. S. lighthouses, Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.  Jutting out into the Altantic where the warmer Gulf Stream collides with the cold Labrador Current, the area is so treacherous it’s called the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

 One of the most interesting lighthouses, Tybee Island Lighthouse, sits at the mouth of the Savannah River, leading to the port of Savannah, the fourth busiest and fastest growing container port in the U.S.  Some form of a tower has sat on this very spot since 1736, guiding mariners safely into the Savannah River. 

Tybee Island Lighthouse

The present-day 1867 structure sits on the foundation of a brick tower built in 1773, which was built as on the site of the original wooden tower of 1736 , the third of the colonial lighthouses!

The venerable Old Charleston Lighthouse on Morris Island at the entrance to the port of Charleston is the eighth of the colonial lighthouses.  Ancient-looking, with the sea lapping at its edges, it was retired in 1962, but it’s a great photo op. 

America’s historic coastal guardians - Visit them, climb them, photograph them, paint them, collect miniatures as souvenirs.  Picturesque and charming, they command attention.

Dazzling, trendy, glossy.  

Sleek buildings, flashy cars, the lastest everything.  

Beautiful people; star sightings. 

Hot bodies drinking MonaVie on white sand beaches; SoBe glitterati getting past the velvet rope at A-list night spots.

Miami is all this…but it is also so much more. 

Miami didn’t start out as a sizzling international hot spot, but it didn’t take long for it to get there.  Looking at the city today, it’s hard to believe that in the 1870s there was little there, save for a few hardy pioneers battling mosquitos as they farmed coontie roots to make starch on the narrow oolitic limestone ridge along pristine Biscayne Bay, where mirrored, high-rises now stand.

The isolation didn’t last long.  The tourism potential of the warm climate, beautiful beaches, and aqua-hued water was not lost on wealthy American industrialists of the late 1800s with plenty of money to spend.  They bought vast tracts of waterfront land for mere dollars, invested in land schemes, and built grand hotels on the speculation that tourists would come.  And come they did

They built Miami in an over-the-top way, using showy architectural styles, remnants of which still exist along the eastern edge of Miami, in Coral Gables, and along its famous beaches.  To visit Miami and not see these incredible architectural statements is to leave short-changed.

After lunching in one of Coconut Grove’s many sidewalk cafes, or shopping in its trendy boutiques, cross over to the shady side of Main Highway and into The Barnacle State Historic Site.  Just beyond the fern-covered natural limestone rock wall, shaded by immense banyan canopies, sits The Barnacle, the simple, sensible home of boat builder and naturalist, Commodore Ralph Munroe.  Built in 1891, with a wide veranda to shade the house and an intriguing skylight operated by ropes and pulleys to take advantage of the bayfront breezes, it tells the story of Miami’s early days.  

Wind up through the Grove along the bayfront and pass through the walls of magnificent Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, and into the world of Miami of 1916.  A palacial villa built by James Deering, a very rich agricultural industrialist with borrowed tastes, it’s at once elegant and gaudy.  With a dizzying, eclectic array of styles from different periods, it’s an incredible sight.  The antique, painting and sculpture-filled, gilded and embellished villa is fascinating; the manicured grounds with garden statuary, magnificent; the stone, barge-shaped, sculpture-topped breakwater, unusual, bordering on bizarre.  The view is breathtaking.

Long before there was SoBe, there was the City Beautiful - Coral Gables, a suburban development of the early 1920s, whose every detail was planned and executed in a Mediterranean theme by founder, George Merrick.   The fairy-tale project began as a sales ploy, but the end result, still viable 80+ years later, is a truly elegant community.  Ornate, walled and fountain-centered entrances graciously herald one in.  Purposefully planted, lush majestic royal poinsianas, dripping in flame-red blossoms, and huge banyans with roots the size of columns, shade streets lined with lovely old-world, Spanish-inspired homes.  Step back to the Gilded Age with a stay, or just lunch, in the fabulously elegant Biltmore Hotel. Swim in the one-of-a-kind Venetian Pool, an oolitic limestone rock quarry, whose rock outcroppings and caves, waterfalls and lush landscaping create a natural rock swimming pool.  Drop in to Books & Books, a wonderful bookstore with an old world feeling for a great read; shop along Miracle Mile, the place for brides; dine in one of dozens of the Gables’ fine intimate restaurants with cuisine from across the globe.   

To see Miami without the razzle-dazzle, venture south, off the beaten tourist path, down Old Cutler Road, a beautiful drive along the limestone ridge, to James Deering’s brother’s place, the Charles Deering Estate.  Here the grounds show off the exquisite natural beauty of Miami, a testament to the passion of the man whose interests were more introspective than those of his flamboyant brother.  On 450 remarkable acres of bayfront land stands Charles’ comparatively simpler, solid, rather boxy home which fits comfortably into the amazing natural landscape which surrounds it, including 115 acres of coastal tropical hardwood hammock, rare in today’s Miami. 

Back to civilization on steroids, South Beach, don’t let the skimpy bikinis keep you from noticing the fabulous painted ladies of Ocean Drive, Miami of the 1930s.  Amazing, austere, abstract, but with a touch of whimsy, these Art Deco hotels were built in the 1930s, for yet another influx of tourists. The geometry of the streamline design of these hotels is energized by pastel colors and by the designs on bas relief panels and etched glass depicting the fantasty of South Florida lifestyle: flamingos, sealife, palm trees, seashells, portholes.  

South Beach Lifeguard Tower

On the famous beach, even the lifeguard stations are whimsical, colorful, and fanciful.

Miami has always been all about fantasy and futurism.  It thrives on optimism and what could be.  It is, and always has been, a true escape.

This summer and fall, as you travel about the US, include a visit to a city market, community garden, greenmarket, farmers’ markets, tailgate market, and seek out restaurants whose menus feature fresh, regionally grown vegetables and sustainable cuisine.  You’ll love this new tourism twist!Enjoy make-shift stalls and shaded lots filled with bins and buckets exploding with color.  Smell, pinch and snap, sample. Indulge in something delicious, freshly baked or locally canned.  Take in the regional flavor, the fresh air, the bustling sounds, the camaraderie.  Mingle with locals.

Get used to the term community garden as it’s making a comeback. They’ve been around since man began farming, and in the US became popular and patriotic during WWII when they were known as Victory Gardens.  In urban centers, blighted areas have long been greened by window boxes, roof gardens, green sproutings carefully tended in tiny plots, or in abandoned lots tucked between concrete walls.

The most recent urban community garden to make a big splash is the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden on the lawn of San Francisco’s City Hall, part of the Victory Gardens 2008+ project that is sweeping the city!  The food from the garden will be donated to local food banks and meal programs, and the overall message is to show urban residents that they, too, can grow their own, even in a limited space.   If you’re visiting San Francisco between July and September 2008, stop by City Hall in the Civic Center area.  You can get there several ways, but why not take the San Francisco Trolley Hop, get off at its Union Square stop, walk a couple of blocks to the BART stop at Market & Powell.  Get on the BART to the Civic Center stop.  You can’t miss the domed City Hall.  Or, if you’re just walking about, find one of San Francisco’s 40 community gardens on city-owned property.

Visiting Boston?  Hop on the Old Town Trolley Tours of Boston (a great tour with the added perk of being able to hop off at any one of the convenient stops to see the sights), get off at Stop # 11, walk down to the light, cross the street and Fenway Victory Gardens, the last of the WWII Victory Gardens, is right in front.   Or, get off at trolley Stop # 8, walk past the John Hancock Building, turn right onto Berkeley Street and walk 4 blocks to Berkeley Gardens, where Asian families carry on centuries-old tradition of farming garden plots.

Whether in a big city or small town, greenmarkets and farmers’ markets are no longer off the beaten path.  They’re sprouting up everywhere.  Greenmarket is a term more frequently associated with urban areas, while farmers’ markets can be large and urban, or small-town and colloquial.  Both can sell not only produce, but meat, seafood, baked goods, arrays of cheeses and other dairy products, preserves, honey, flowers and even crafts.  The produce can be organic, or not.

In big cities, while greenmarkets are becoming increasingly popular, some have been around forever. New York City, the penultimate urban community, has over 40, the biggest of which is Union Square Greenmarket, a must see!  Be sure to get there early as this is where the city’s famous chefs go shortly after dawn in search of the freshest ingredients for the day’s menu.  Washington’s beloved Eastern Market, a neighborhood market in the Capitol Hill neighborhood for over a century, was badly burned in a fire in April 2007, but vendors have kept the market open by setting up outside or across the street!  In Philadelphia, the year-round Reading Terminal Market has been a city fixture since William Penn’s time, and in historic Boston, the Copely Square Farmer’s Market sets up from mid-May to mid-November on Tuesdays and Fridays right in front of glorious Trinity Church on the famous square.

And the list goes on … Chicago has its Green City Market, a year-round market set up at the center of Lincoln Park in the summer, and inside the Peggy Notebaert Nature Center in the winter, which encourages sustainable practices from farmers selling there.  In New Orleans, be sure to stop by the Mid-City Green Market, which, to the delight of locals and visitors, just re-opened in May after having been closed since Katrina.  Glittery Las Vegas is more than nighttime neon - stop by Garden Park Farmers’ Market for a breath of fresh air.  On Saturdays in trendy Miami, walk through the venerable Coconut Grove Organic Farmers Market for a change of pace.

Smaller farmers’ markets, more regional in flavor, tend to have a real neighborly feel.  In Washington DC, within the beltway residents love their year-round Farm Fresh Market, open Sundays in the Dupont Circle neighborhood, and seasonally in Foggy Bottom and in up and coming Penn Quarter.  In the Los Angeles area, surrounded by miles and miles of fertile fields, farmers’ markets are everywhere, many featuring Asian and Hispanic specialties. San Diego has so many that the Farm Bureau of San Diego County pulishes a Farmer’s Market Schedule!

Likewise in small communities and towns across the country, small farmers’ markets and even smaller tailgate markets are everywhere. Traveling about by car this summer? If you see a farmers’ market along the way, stop. Get out to stretch your legs and pick up fresh ingredients for a spontaneous picnic lunch.  Sure beats the packaged, fast-food alternative!

For a change in restaurant fare, become a  “Locavore!” Designated as the word of the year in November 2007 by the New Oxford American Dictionary, it means one who is passionate about eating local ingredients.  In many cities, chefs are creating market-driven menus with selections prepared with regionally produced and available ingredients. In San Diego, locavores go to JSix in the Gaslamp District, just a couple of blocks from Old Town Trolley Tours of San Diego’s Stop #5A for innovative lunch and dinner menus featuring fresh, seasonal regional produce and sustainable seafood.  In New York City, many restaurants are following the market-driven menu trend, and do so with creativity and flair.  For example, Tribeca Grill, owned by Robert DiNiro, is fabulous and reflects the artistic character of the surrounding Tribeca neighborhood; BLT Market in the Ritz Carleton reflects its upscale Midtown East neighborhood.  In Washington, D.C., Nora’s became America’s first certified organic restaurant in 1999; 15 ria’s new American cuisine is fabulously created with market-fresh ingredients that change with the season; and, Hook in Georgetown offers a wonderful dining experience with a menu that changes daily to reflect whatever sustainable fish are in season and available.

Get out; get in touch.  See America as you have never before see it!

Way back in April, when I posted “The Real Florida for Kids – Eco-discovery in Lowry Park Zoo,” I promised two more posts featuring special places in Florida where kids can truly experience Florida’s unique natural habitat. Well, it’s taken this long to get to part two: “The Mysterious Everglades.”

Imagine this. A river of grass: a slow-moving sheet of water spanning thousands of acres, sometimes seen, sometimes not, covered by golden sawgrass as far as the eye can see, and broken up only by hammock islands where cabbage palm, royal palm, live oak, gumbo limbo and West Indian mahogany thrive. There is a silence here. It’s a place of forbidding bogs, cypress knees protruding from dark water, spidery airplants clinging to tree limbs, life-sustaining mangroves, showy bromiliads, bright green fern, and the elusive ghost orchid.

It’s home of the resilient Miccosukee Indians, the slow-moving, fast-acting alligator, the sultry, endangered Florida panther, and long legged wading birds. It’s fascinating and fragile; controversial and compromised. (For adults, a great must-read is Michael Grunwold’s “The Swamp.”)

For kids it’s a fabulous one-of-a-kind adventure! They’ll love skimming over the endless sheet of water mirroring the blue sky and puffy cumulus clouds above while perched up high on an airboat. What a ride it is! It’s thrilling and exciting, and they’re sure to see alligators sunning motionless on a bank or moving silently through the water, with only snout, eyes, and a piece of broad back exposed. They’ll spot soft-shell turtles with long noses that serve them well as snorkels as they paddle just beneath the surface. They’ll see birds everywhere – long-legged wading ones: great blue herons, white ibises, snowy egrets; soaring, sharp-eyed ones: osprey and eagles; awkward-looking ones: anhingas perched on tree limbs with waterlogged outspread wings drying in the sun, and giant wood stork, appearing way too big to be balancing on cypress tree limbs.

For a quieter ride (airboats are run by airplane propellers and are very loud) in deeper water, take them on a guided boat tour out of Chocoloskee or Everglades City through the mangrove-lined estuaries of the isolated Ten Thousand Islands, where they’ll encounter slow-moving gentle manatee, playful dolphin and countless wading birds. It’s quiet and pristine, and riding through mangrove tunnels is awesome!

The magnificent Everglades can be accessed from both the southwest and the southeast coasts of Florida at various locations along US 41(Tamiami Trail) which traverses the Everglades from just outside of the Naples/Ft. Myers area, all the way to Miami.

From the west coast side, really interesting and exciting are either a full day Everglades trip (no children under 5 allowed) or half-day excursions (for kids of any age). Chokoloskee and Everglades City, both simple “old Florida” fishing communities tucked deep into the Everglades, are about a half hour out of Naples, and about an hour and a half out of Miami. Everglades National Park can be accessed at various visitor centers near Tamiami Trail. Closest to Miami is the main park entrance, the Ernest Coe Visitor Center in Homestead. Further west is Shark Valley Visitor Center, and closest to Florida’s west coast is Gulf Coast Visitor Center is at the intersection of Route 29 and Tamiami Trail near Everglades City.

On the Miami end of Tamiami Trail/US 41, airboat safaris depart from several concessions along the way, and the Miccosoukee Information Center and Cultural Center at MM 70 offers the chance to experience the lives of the Miccosoukee, descendents of Indians who escaped deep into the Everglades in the 1850s, successfully elluding deportation out west.

Take your kids to the Everglades … it’s fascinating and real.

That’s what it felt like as I sat in my comfortable car exploring Lion Country Safari near West Palm Beach in Florida. This wonderful attraction was created in 1967 as the first drive-through animal preserve and it’s still a delight.

The experience is really in two main parts. You begin with the drive-through safari where animals large and small often stand right next to your vehicle. I was amazed at the size and power of the rhino’s, who took little notice of me. The best part is that you can tour at your own pace with room to pull over and allow others to pass you. This way you can gawk at the lions for as long as you want.

The second part of the adventure has you parking and walking for more animal displays and demonstrations and a terrific giraffe feeding. I met the oldest giraffe in captivity! (26 years) They also have the largest Zebra herd outside of Africa and the largest Southern White Rhino herd in North America. This part of the park reminds me of the county fair or going to a carnival. Games, rides and food are plentiful. They even have a ferris wheel. A KOA campground was created in the 1980’s so you can wake to the sounds of the jungle. What an adventure!

Suddenly, the Zebra raised it’s head and I knew the chase was on.

In the jungle, the mighty jungle. The Lion sleeps tonight.

Okay, I have to admit that I enjoy celebrity watching. The antics of the rich and famous crack me up. The dramas seem so big when the cameras are clicking. I also enjoy boating.

Island Queen Sightseeing Cruises combines both! Sweet!

Launching from Bayside Marketplace in Miami, Florida, we smoothly made our way past Fisher Island and the Port of Miami to “Millionaires Row”. Wow! Tiger Woods, Shaq, Rosie O’ Donnell, Sylvester Stallone, Gloria Estefan and many more have property here and we Ooohed and Aaahed at the lavish homes.

The Ship is large enough that you can walk around easily while listening to the bilingual narration. The ride is stable with plenty of chairs and snacks and drinks are available while you enjoy the cruise. At 90 minutes, the timing is just right to enjoy the sights and sounds while rubbing elbows with the “who’s who” of Miami. We even saw Al Capone’s former house.

One of the best features is the starting location. Bayside marketplace has a parking garage and wonderful shops and restaurants to enjoy before and after the Island Queen cruise. What a great way to see this part of Miami. It just doesn’t get any better than this for me.