Coral Castle

This is the "Coral Castle". It is south of where we live, but worth the drive. It was amazing, to say the least. The entire castle was created by one man who was shorter than I am!!! He excavated the coral from a makeshift quarry on his property, moved the multi-ton blocks, shaped them into whatever they were to become, and placed them in their spots. It took him from 1923-1951 to complete it. This is what we saw from the outside... first his quarry:

Then the entrance:

This is their insurance policy. Smart, huh?

Ed (the builder) lived in this tower, his tools were kept in the room below:

Based on the size and type of coral he excavated, they are now able to estimate the weight of each masterpiece. All in all they weighed over 1,100 tons!!! What?! He built all this as a tribute to his fiance who left him the day before their wedding. So sad, right?

Everywhere we looked there were more and more amazing things to see. Rocking chairs, reading chairs that faced in every direction to get the best light on your book depending on the time of day, fountains, a huge table in the shape of Florida that is geographically near perfect, a bedroom, bathtub carved to displace exactly the amount of water to bring it to the rim based on his own body size...

This is the Polaris telescope. Through the cross hairs in this wall and then through the tall tower structure you can see the north star. Pretty good for a guy with only a 4th grade education.

The throne room:

The repentance (time-out) corner for his want to be children:

The beds and baby cradle for his kids too, although I am not sure they really would have appreciated them being rock hard, literally:

The cooking spot:

The well. He dug this well and discovered that coral is a natural purifier/filter, so all the water that still flows from it is drinkable. Also, he carved out a small room down there to store his food because it was at a constant state of 50 degrees or lower.

The boys were VERY busy and it was hard for them to listen to us that day. We probably should have actually used that repentance corner, rather than just posing in it. :)

Some of the tools he used:

All in all, this was probably the most impressive, man made, hand constructed monument I have ever seen. So so so amazing. Here is a link to their website to see and read more if you're interested. If you are in Florida, or ever will be, I recommend it.