It turned out that the central Florida landscape I'd be going through included lakes and gardens and swamps, just the sort of natural attractions that brought tourists to Florida in the first place. It seems there was life - and tourism - in Florida way before Disney did Orlando in 1971. Starting in the late 19th century, tourism entrepreneurs began packaging nature - from springs to rivers to wildlife - as the first incarnation of theme parks.
When tourists started arriving in droves by the late 1920s, they often traveled along a few major routes, and flashier roadside attractions, accompanied by unique signs and come-ons, began flanking the highways. While some survive today, the majority of the homespun roadside attractions no longer exist.
But we found a few survivors of those earlier times - not just Weeki Wachee, which dates to 1947, but also the 1929 Bok "Singing Tower" and gardens in Lake Wales, which some say was the first real tourist attraction in Florida.
These and several other offbeat, interesting, or just plain kitschy attractions happened to be either on our route or close enough for a detour.
We would have two days to be Florida tourists, the old-fashioned way.
Unfortunately, we were bringing the trappings of the digital age with us, which led to a curse-fest in the front seat of our rental car. I am cursing because I need to do all these modern mobile-journalism things, like blog and tweet about my trip, and I can't transmit so much as a chirp from my laptop. My friend Lisa is cursing because we are relying on our GPS device to lead us to a cellphone store. The GPS has chosen to drive us crazy rather than to the promised destination.
