Saturday, January 4th

Wow!!!!! Woke up to no rain. Decided to go checkout this castle in the middle of nowhere. Gal at the Florida Welcome Center said if we end up in the middle of the state we need to visit Solomon's Castle built with recycled material. Junk I say, but beautiful junk. This Man named Howard Solomon started building this amazing castle in 1972. Virtually everything is recycled. The exterior is made of old printing plates used in printing newspapers and all the stained glass windows shared a story. The neatest stuff was inside the castle. Figurines he made were from used car parts that actually moved and looked like the person or object his way portraying through his art. Very hard to describe his art because it was so different. He's a one man show and still working 6 days a week on his new projects. We had an  opportunity to meet Howard in his shop. Very humble little man of 78 years old and may be 125 lbs soaking wet. Along with his castle he has built a 65 foot boat that he's turned into a restaurant that's floating in the moat. The guy is just flipping unbelievable. We've been to the Smithstonian Institute and this guy is just as good as a lot of things in there. I wish I had half his energy and all of his creativity. Lol.   The rest of the day Sara and kids took a bike ride and encountered some wild pigs. I of course was probably cleaning the camper or preparing dinner. Lol      ^Jeff