Chihuly Collection of glass things was one of our first stops, teaching us again you can’t take photos of everything and you can’t post every photo you take. Dale Chihuly is an American glass artist, still living at last report. The collection is not just his stuff; in fact, mostly not.
The lower right we brought home. Actually, we couldn’t find a spot in our car so let Jim and Kathryn bring it to Minnesota for us; probably the most expensive souvenier that we have bought. I think it made Jim nervous.
Of course, I needed a few stereo-grams; here’s one. Just cross your eyes.
When I look again, there are a few more I need to show. The first two are the two sides of the same piece. I don’t remember why Margaret Hamilton, but I like her.
I need to include something actually by Dale Chihuly. His pieces tend to very large, like one-ton chandeliers resembling sea grass, breasts, or snakes. Cross your eyes; the effect for this one probably isn’t worth it.
Before we left, we got a demonstration of how to make fagile objects from melted sand. And a couple things we found on the street near by. I think one is the entrance to the men’s room.
Then we moved on to an exhibit of Salidor Dali and Rene Magritte; they seemed to be in competition to out surreal the other. Dali apparently was the better marketer. One of his schemes was to always pay for meals with a check, put a sketch on the back, and expect the check to not be cashed.
We had dinner with the Lees on the beach. I forgot to get a picture of the people.
Heading south, we got to the Everglades National Park. It seems a very long time ago, when the world was a much simpler place, but this was January, 2019, and we were in the midst of a government shutdown. For the Everglades, this meant it was not officially open. For us, it meant there were no crowds, the rangers who kept showng up weren’t being paid, and the restrooms were being cleaned by local volunteers. That is serious volunteering.
There may have been more crocodiles and alligators than birds but the birds are more photogenic. These were probably alligators; I didn’t exam their teeth. Apparently this is the only place in the world where it could be either. In general, crocodiles don’t like cold so won’t go further north; alligators don’t like saltwater so won’t go further south. Crocodiles show their teeth and will attack if they don’t like you. Alligator teeth don’t show, unless its month is open, but they won’t attack unless they have to and they sleep a lot.
Lunch in Key Largo; again no people. Like most of Florida, lots of car trafffic; maps show a lot of bike trails but mostly shoulders of highways with no water view; and drivers who would prefer we weren’t there.
Tandemonia 