Mardi Gras at Betty's Florida!

So this is a Mardi Gras that has no photographs, but we'll try to give you an idea what fun we had.

First, understand that we spent the prior week with our good friends George and Nan and Jim and Nance in Stuart, Florida.  We did so many things and had so much fun, such as our first night at Terra Fermatta --

-- and, as per our tradition, hiding out in the rain under an umbrella while we toasted our good fortune to be together:

What happens in Stuart stays (for the most part) in Stuart, so we will only tell you about Mardi Gras, which, this year, occurred on March 1.

We started our celebration by visiting George, who is a docent at the Elliott Museum in Stuart, Florida. George was kind enough to take us on a personal tour of the museum's exhibits, such as this Foucault Pendulum:

For a short time, the Museum is hosting a Johnson Sea Link Submersible from the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute.  Johnson Sea Link was a type of deep-sea scientific research submersible built by Edwin Albert Link in 1971 at the request of his friend Seward Johnson, founder of the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. The Johnson Sea Link submersibles carried a crew of four in two separate compartments. The aft compartment was originally designed for lockout diving, allowing two divers to be compressed to the ambient pressure of the ocean and leave the submersible to work underwater. The forward pilot's compartment was an acrylic sphere with a diameter of 5 feet, providing a panoramic underwater view for the pilot and an observer.

We imagined ourselves in the pilot's acrylic bubble, and it seemed pretty claustrophobic.  We can't imagine how cramped the second diver chamber must have felt.

The Elliott Museum focuses on art, history, and technology. Named after the prolific inventor Sterling Elliott, the museum features a changing exhibition gallery and an art studio; maritime, baseball, and local history galleries; and bicycles, classic wooden boats, motorcycles, over 90 cars and trucks, and even an airplane. Over 50 vehicles are displayed in a unique robotic racking system which retrieves vehicles on demand for display on a turntable. It has one of the largest collections of historic Ford Model A and Model AA commercial vehicles in the world.

Here, Kathy demonstrates the proper way to drive a Ford Model AA --

-- and David gets a lesson in technical auto mechanics from George:

Kathy thought it might have been cool to ride to school in this early Ford Model AA schoolbus:

The original Elliott Museum was built in 1961 by Harmon Elliott as a tribute to his father, Sterling Elliott (1852–1922), who produced a series of successful inventions. He held more than 125 patents. His determination to improve on everyday objects helped enhance established businesses and the quality of life for the average person. He developed the first Knot Tying machine, the low wheeled trotting sulky, the Elliott addressing machine, the pneumatic tire, the ball bearing and the steering knuckle (or kingpin) to facilitate unequal turning of front wheels that would turn out to be a critical element in the success of the automobile.

The museum has an eclectic collection of exhibits, including many bicycles due to Sterling Elliott's efforts to improve them.  However, perhaps the most unexpected was an exhibit on the infamous Ashley Gang, headed by John Ashley.  Ashley, who died in 1924 in his late 30's, was an American outlaw, bank robber, bootlegger, and occasional pirate active in southern Florida during the 1910s and 1920s. Between 1915 and 1924, the self-styled "King of the Everglades" or "Swamp Bandit" operated from various hideouts in the Florida Everglades. His gang robbed nearly $1 million from at least 40 banks while at the same time hijacking numerous shipments of illegal whiskey being smuggled into the state from the Bahamas. Indeed, Ashley's gang was so effective that rum-running on the Florida coast virtually ceased while the gang was active. His two-man raid on the West End in the Bahamas in 1924 marked the first time in over a century that American pirates had attacked a British Crown colony.

Apparently, Kathy has a questionable background, because her face appears in a Wanted poster in the Ashley exhibit:

The last -- but not least -- exhibit George introduced us to at the Elliott was an exhibition of paintings by The Highwaymen, which included 25 men and 1 woman artist who were African American.  If you were poor, black, and had limited education, the still deeply segregated South of the mid 1950s offered little in the way of opportunity other than the work of a farm laborer. But along the hot and dusty thoroughfares of Florida’s Treasure Coast, a small troupe of 26 African American visionaries turned their backs on the fields and set their sights on an inspired future—a future that was steeped in the organic beauty of South Florida’s breathtaking vistas.  These self-taught artists developed a rapid style of painting that captured an appealing and romantic illustration of Florida’s natural splendor. From the Indian River shores of Brevard to the shimmering beaches of Broward, they set up their roadside “studios” and created artwork that they peddled from the trunks of their cars. Typically, these resourceful artisans sold their stunning landscapes, with hand-made frame included—for $10 or less, to locals, tourists, and businesses up and down their asphalt galleries of South Florida.  Although they were shut out of Florida’s museums and galleries in the 1950s, these 26 Black painters captured Florida’s tropical landscapes and managed to make a living — and a name for themselves — with paintings that are now prized as top examples of Americana folk art.

Here is a sample of their spectacular Florida landscape art:

This is probably as much culture as you can take in one blog entry, so we'll move on to our Mardi Gras story, which will be somewhat disappointing for its brevity and lack of photodocumentation.

Suffice it to say, that our gang convened at Nance and Jim Tidball's house for a spectacular Shrimp Étouffée dinner, complete with Kathy's potato salad and a King Cake provisioned by Nan Finlayson.  George, Jim and David supplied the libations.

We dedicated the Mardi Gras celebration officially to Betty Bernard, proprietor of Betty's RV Park, who has caught more of our RV friends in her web than we can count.  Here's to you Betty!

As it happened, our daughter Katie called with good news while we were celebrating, so we added a "Hip, Hip Hooray!" for Katie to the overall festivities:

By the time we had finished, we were well libated, and bid each other goodbye until we have a chance to convene again in Stuart a year from now -- hopefully Covid-free.

Thank you, Tidballs and Finlaysons, for a wonderful time well hosted!