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| Buddy spends his last afternoon at Beverly Beach |
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| Beau and Buddy take five |
We were sad to leave our home for the past week at Beverly Beach.
We said farewell to the ocean and to Cappy the Clown, whom we hope to stay in touch with. Don't you love her dog Edison? She calls him Noodle because he goes limp when she picks him up (see the second photo below).
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| Beau, Buddy, me, Cappy, and Edison |
We set off for the town of Citra, our home base for the trip Saturday evening to "The Swamp" to see the Gators play South Carolina....
A Visit to Cross Creek
We are staying at Grand Lake RV and Golf Resort (though I don't see a lake anywhere), and on the way I saw a sign for the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic Site. I was thrilled! After we got settled we took the car to visit the site and we got a tour of Cross Creek, the home Marjorie bought in 1928 and where she wrote her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Yearling. She lived there until1953, when she died.
Of course I cried when I saw her home -- in a lovely citrus grove. Here I am blatting, in front of the house.
I was in heaven -- transported back to the romanticized version of Marjorie's life that became the movie "Cross Creek." If you haven't seen the movie, you MUST. Although it is factually inaccurate, it is a truly wonderful film.
I was thrilled to walk the floors Marjorie walked (and Gregory Peck, Robert Frost, and others who visited her), and spend time among many of her things. She put in the first bathroom in Cross Creek, then celebrated by inviting the neighbors, filling the tub with ice and drinks, putting glasses on a tray over the sink, and using the toilet as a vase for roses.
She cooked on a wood burning stove, and loved to entertain. She converted a closet into a liquor cabinet, storing firewood below and "firewater" above (I got that from the brochure).
She also fished and hunted, once killing a wild boar from her front porch!
This visit was a real highlight of the trip pour moi. (Why am I speaking French?) Beau tagged along, as did Buddy. Neither of them appreciated the experience the way I did, though.
Some photos from the tour:
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| Scrapbook photo of Marjorie on the set of "The Yearling." |
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| Her bedroom, where she sometimes wrote in the morning |
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| Her dining room, with her original china. She always sat in the chair facing the outhouse outside, so her guests would not have to see that. |
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| A photo of Marjorie. |
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| She often wrote here on the porch. |
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| Her wood burning stove. |
Finally, me at the outhouse!
I stole a kumquat and an orange. The former was delicious, the latter horribly bitter!
Tanks, Panky
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