Ripley's Believe It...Or Not

Remember back in the "olden" days, before cable or satellite TV, before Netflix or Hulu or DVD's or any form of television viewing other than the 8-10 local channels available to everyone?  When the whole family had to watch whatever the parental units wanted to watch because they had control of the one and only TV in the house?  Yeah, we're going back in time....

There were programs that my mom or dad would watch that didn't interest us kids.  At.All.  News programs, for instance.  My mom watched the evening news every night, right after the cartoon shows were over, and we'd skedaddle.  Our toys had much better stuff to offer.

If dad was home it was sports.  Specifically baseball.  My dad was a baseball enthusiast.  None of us kids were.  He also watched Spanish channel programming, comedy shows, variety shows, some we'd watch, most we didn't care for.  Now that I look back, us kids didn't watch anywhere near as much television as kids today, mostly because there wasn't much to watch after the cartoons were done, and they were only on from 3pm to 5pm.

There were a few shows that we did enjoy watching as a family.  The Wonderful World of Disney.  Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.  And a freaky sort of show called Ripley's Believe It Or Not.

Ripley's showed the world that, no matter how weird you think you are, there is always something much weirder out there.  We were mesmerized by the strange discoveries of Mr. Ripley.  It was a sad day when the show went off the air.

What I never expected was to one day take a trip to one of Ripley's Museums.  And not just any Ripley's Museum.  The very first one ever.

Ripley's St. Augustine was originally Warden Castle, the home of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling.  Mr. Ripley was invited to her home once and fell in love with it; so much so that he tried to purchase it.  Mrs. Rawling said no.  He asked again several times, and the answer was always no.  After Mr. Ripley's passing, his heirs were able to purchase this mansion he loved so much, and convert it into a museum to show off the oddities he'd collected during his lifetime.

We visited the Ripley Museum on Saturday because it had started to rain.  I'd already purchased the tickets online before leaving home, and we'd decided we'd go when it wasn't possible to be outdoors.  We didn't think it would be the first full day we were there!

Walking in the door we were greeted by a statue of Captain Jack Sparrow made of car parts.  I was so excited to see that not everything in the Ripley's museum would be old items found by Mr. Ripley.  There are old items, but there are also newer and fun finds.  This was a great way to start our tour of Ripley's.

The first floor contained a few older finds, then we went upstairs and gasped.  A two story ferris wheel made from an erector set greeted us - a WORKING erector set!  We knew there would be extraordinary stuff to see, but this really caught us off guard!

"Strange Heads of the Primitive World."  Need I say more?

Isn't this a lovely castle?  Would you believe it's made out of matchsticks?!

So is this pagoda!

Can you imagine dating a guy that's 9 feet tall?  My poor little girl felt even shorter than usual.

It's Florida's golden boy, Tim Tebow!  This portrait is made out of air soft balls.

The Pirate Room.  There was all sorts of information on pirates, plus a laser shooting range.  My kids liked that!

After going through three floors of exhibits we still had much to see outside.  This horse statue, for instance, that is made out of old car bumpers.  Hi ho Silver, away!

This anchor was pulled out of Matanzas Bay in St. Augustine.  Many French soldiers were slaughtered in this bay.

This is just a small sampling of all the great things we saw at Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum.  Tickets were $14.99 per person but well worth it.  We spent over 2 hours seeing what they had to offer and learning about some of the crazy things that can be found on Planet Earth.  This was my youngest son's favorite place to visit...after the chocolate factory, of course.  We didn't see everything; there was lots to see and we were exhausted!  But what we did see was incredible, and we are glad we decided on Ripley's as part of our vacation.

Thursday Thoughts

~ Molly and I have been taking longer walks in the mornings.  Since she was spayed last month I had to start her on short walks so she wouldn't tire herself out or hurt herself.  We went from 10 minutes to 15, then to 20, and the last couple of mornings we've walked for 30 minutes.  She enjoys her walks so much, and it's great exercise for me as well.  Plus, I have to take advantage of the beautiful weather we've been having.  The mornings are sunny and warm but not humid, and there's a breeze so it's comfortable for walking.

~ If the weather continues the way it's been, this summer will be unbearable!  We basically skipped winter this year, with only one or two "cold" days (in the 50s).  Winter felt more like spring, and spring has already disappeared, quickly turning into summer.  We haven't had much rain either, just a few sporadic days of showers, so the heat is becoming more intense.  In the afternoons it gets into the mid 80s and we're only in April.  I don't know how we'll survive July and August.

~ My daughter went back to Central Florida on Tuesday.  She came down for the weekend, and we mailed her graduation announcements.  It still seems incredible that 4 years have passed and my daughter will be graduating from college.  She has her last classes this week, and finals next week.  Graduation is May 3.

~ I don't know why colleges schedule graduations for weekdays.  My daughter's graduation is on a Thursday morning.  That means E and I will have to leave here Wednesday afternoon, because A lives 4 hours away.  It also means he'll be missing 2 days of school, Thursday and Friday, because there's no way I'm driving up Wednesday and leaving Thursday.  I know this won't go over well with his school, but I don't care about that.

~ Here in Florida, excused absences are: a) a death in the family, or b) sickness.  I think that's horrible.  The schools will only excuse absences for illness or tragedy.  What about happy occasions?  What if Mom is having a new baby?  Or a special relative is visiting from out of town?  Or maybe your older sibling will be graduating from the university?  I think these are valid reasons for a child missing school.  Children should be allowed to celebrate the good moments in life and not worry about what their teachers will say.

~ My daughter A and I went shopping on Saturday for a dress for graduation.  She wanted to dress up nice but didn't want to wear heels because the graduation is about 3 hours long and that can get tiring.  I dreaded having to go dress shopping with her because she's so picky.  We've gone dress shopping before and it's hasn't been much fun.  God obviously had compassion on me because He found us a dress at the very first store we entered at the mall!  We went into Sears only because it was the first store we passed, not because I expected there to be anything she liked.  Actually there were several really pretty summer dresses that would be totally appropriate to wear with flats, and the first one she tried on was a winner!  The dress was on sale too, $35.99.  She got a tank top to wear underneath (since the dress is low cut) and a pair of black patent flats at Payless, and so she got her entire graduation outfit for just over $75.  After looking at some other outfits and shoes I felt like we did really good!

~ The past couple of weeks have been so busy.  This is the first day I'm taking it easy in quite some time.  I deserve a day off.  Of course I'll still have stuff to do, like making my son's favorite meal (beef empanadas), but I'm gonna relax a little today too.

~ I've been watching Poirot on Netflix, since I've finished watching all the episodes of Sherlock Holmes.  I love those kinds of mysteries, the whodunnit's.  I'm so glad we have Netflix too, because network television has nothing that appeals to me.  I'm not into the competitions, I don't like reality TV (well, except for the Duggars), and even the channels I used to enjoy don't entertain anymore.  I used to watch HGTV all the time for the decorating shows, but now it seems all they ever show is House Hunters or Property Virgins or My First Place - shows on buying homes, not decorating them.  There are still a few good shows on Food Network but too many are repeats.  If it weren't because my son loves watching his cartoons I'd get rid of satellite TV altogether and just keep Netflix.

And those are my thoughts for this Thursday.  Have a blessed rest of your week.