The Florida Mom & Son Adventure - Day 4

I awoke to birdsong and fountain noises directly outside our first-floor room at the Malaga.  It was a refreshing change from the highway noise typically experienced in roadside hotels.  The Malaga is a renovated boutique inn created from twin townhouses built by two brothers-in-law during the civil war.  Construction on the town homes began shortly after Alabama passed it's secession ordinance in 1861 and was completed a year later.  The renovations created a square structure with a central courtyard filled with native plants, shade trees and a large, central fountain.  Each of the 39 rooms is individually decorated and styled.  You can choose which room you want when you make a reservation.  The Kansas Hicks' highly recommend this hotel with two enthusiastic thumbs up!  (BTW - it's haunted.)

We had things to do and places to see, so we had to leave this little slice of heaven behind to take a quick drive south to Bellingrath Gardens where we had planned to spend our morning. Bellingrath is the retirement estate of Walter and Bessie Bellingrath.  Walter was a Coca-Cola magnate who purchased a 25-acre fishing camp overlooking the Fowl River.  Bessie was a gardener. In 1927, after a trip overseas, they hired an architect to transform the rough camp into an estate and gardens to rival the ones they had seen in Europe.  In 1932, they opened their completely transformed acreage to the public.  The home was finished in 1936.

I visited this garden in the 80s with my parents, so it was fun to walk through it with Isaac pointing out the spots I remembered.  We meandered through the property with Isaac holding the map and calling the shots.  We also had a cheat sheet of things that were in bloom so we could properly identify what we were seeing.  

The rose garden was particularly beautiful and in full bloom.  We also saw purple and white Delphinium and Hydrangea, dazzling red Fuschia, yellow and white Marguerite daisies, several Petunias of all colors, purple Phlox and white Viburnum.  We listened to the bamboo clinking and clacking at the entrance to the Bayou Boardwalk.  We shared a chicken salad sandwich at the garden cafe and gift shop.  We also finally learned the name of the evergreen trees we had been seeing everywhere - the Bald Cyprus.  Isaac was impressed at the use of seashells mixed with gravel to pave the parking lot and was really good at spotting 7 turtles, several lizards and even one snake.  All in all, we had a fantastic, relaxing morning and were ready to head out on the next section of our drive.

We drove back north to Mobile, across the Mobile Bay and down to Pensacola where we crossed the Pensacola Bay and eventually connected with the Oskaloosa Island at Destin, Florida.  From there, we followed the Gulf Coast taking in the sites until we reached the Panama City Beach where we stopped for an early dinner at the Oishi Thai Restaurant and Bar.  We ate our fill of Edamame, Sushi and Sashimi served with apple fries and cucumber slices.  I had a Saki Mimosa that was pretty darn tasty.

As we drove, we were making some serious progress with The Lost City of the Monkey God.  The book was written and published in 2017 by Douglas Preston who is a freelance journalist.  His stories have been featured in The New Yorker, Smithsonian, Harper's and National Geographic.  This story is about a project headed by documentary filmmaker Steve Elkins.  The book is a fascinating account of how Steve used lidar - a technology used to make 3D maps of difficult to reach areas - to search for and map archaeological sites in the Mosquitia region of eastern Honduras.

This story has it all.  There is a surprise encounter with the fer de lance (technical name Bothrops asper), an aggressive snake that can shoot venom up to 6 feet and fangs that can penetrate even the thickest hiking boot.  If not treated promptly, the bite can cause sepsis, acute renal failure, internal bleeding and death.  Douglas awoke in the mornings to the call of the howler monkey right above his tent - a sound that can be heard for up to three miles.  He saw lions, tapirs and jaguars.  And he showered himself with Deet more than once daily to avoid the myriad of jungle insects. He would ultimately end up being bitten by the sandfly - a bite that would cause an infection of an incurable flesh eating disease called leishmaniasis.  The parasitic disease, if left untreated, eventually eats away the victim's face leaving a gaping hole.

Despite all this, the team of engineers, filmmakers and scientists entered the jungle and discovered the now famous archeological City of the Jaguar and mapped it.  The latter half of the book dealt with the question of figuring out who were the city's inhabitants and why they seem to have left the city and disappeared from history.  Needless to say, we were both hooked and could not wait to get back to the book the minute the car doors were closed.

After dinner, we headed inland to Tallahassee, Florida - our next stop - and arrived at the Holiday Inn Express to the north of Florida State University.  We were quite tired after a full day, good food, tons of beach air and some serious progress with the book.  We had also just crossed the time-zone line.  So we called it an early night and went to bed.