Thursday, March 28, 2024

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields


This wonderful orchestra performed recently at Artis Naples.  


During intermission I went outside between the concert hall and Baker Museum.  Intermission during Daylight Savings Time is so much different.


The highlights were a Mendelssohn violin concerto (with star violinist and music director Joshua Bell as soloist) and a Schumann symphony.

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Monday, March 25, 2024

A Great Blue Heron in Flight

I have had a lot of practice spotting a bird that is ready to take off and then taking six to 12 fast images of the bird in flight.  I usually pick the one I like best and delete the rest.  This time, I thought it would be interesting to show the whole sequence.






If you were to pick one and delete the rest, the way I usually do, which would you choose to save?

Sunday, March 24, 2024

Ochopee Post Office

The Ochopee post office is the smallest operating post office in the United States.  About halfway across the Tamiami Trail (U.S. Route 41) between Naples and Miami, Ochopee is at the edge of Big Cypress National Preserve, part of the Everglades.  It has a population of fewer than 500 people. 


The post office is in a former shed, roughly seven feet by eight feet.  There is a phone but no internet.

 

Donald Walters was the employee on duty when I visited last week.  He tells me that he is photographed hundreds of times a day.  

Saturday, March 23, 2024

Smallwood Store

 Ted Smallwood opened a trading post in 1906 in Chokoloskee, a small island in the Ten Thousand Islands offshore from the Everglades.  For decades the store was reachable only by boats.  Today a long bridge connects Chokoloskee to the mainland.  


Smallwood Store was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and stayed open until1982. 

Ted Smallwood's granddaughter opened it as a museum in the 1990s.  She was behind the counter this week when I visited.  Chokoloskee's population is below 400.

Friday, March 22, 2024

Everglades City Hall

Everglades City is about an hour east of where I live in Naples.  When Collier County was created in 1923, Everglades City was the first seat of county government.  Over time, population, business and government moved west to Naples, and this building became Everglades City Hall. 



Collier County was named after Barron Collier, a successful advertising man from New York City who completed the road from Tampa to Miami (the Tamiami Trail, today's U.S. Route 41).  Collier stationed his work crews in Everglades City.