January 24, 2022 - Daytona Beach, Florida
We didn't spend all our time at the Spruce Creek aviation community walking taxiways looking at planes.  One sunny warm afternoon we spent on Daytona Beach.   The beach here is hard-packed; they allow cars to drive on it in certain areas.
   
Check out that bird sitting on top the big pickup.
   

We checked out the Museum of Arts & Sciences (MOAS) which is the primary art, science and history museum in Central Florida.

They had this exhibit on the art of Mark Messersmith.  I'm not a big modern art fan but I do like color and this artist hits color hard.

"Mark Messersmith paints natural Florida in high-keyed jewel-like colors, with hand carved predellas and objects rimming the frames of the works, with an eye toward capturing the stunning beauty to be found here ... "
   
This piece is called May Blooming.  It's not blooming, it's popping!
   
These are oil paintings.  This guy's got skills!
   

A model of the Central Hershey Sugar Mill, located in Cuba.  Milton Hershey of the famous Pennsylvania company established a town and this sugar factory near Santa Cruz, Cuba sometime after 1916.   The Hershey sugar and railroad interests in Cuba were sold in 1946.

Enrique Ortiz Lima, an employee of the sugar mill, hand-built this 1/16 detailed working model of the facility completing it in 1926.

 
   
A diorama of a Giant Ground Sloth -- also known as Eremotherium.  The Giant Ground Sloths were a pure herbivore that ate leaves and grasses.  It was the largest land animal in the western hemisphere, weighing up to five tons at full maturity and standing 15 feet tall.  Even the huge bears and sabre-tooth tigers who co-existed with this sloth could not challenge an adult.  They were believed to have lived from 4.9 million years ago to —11,000 years ago existing (as a genus) for approximately 4.889 million years.
   
In 1975, two amateuar paleontologists discovered the remains of this Giant Ground Sloth only 2 1/2 miles south of this museum.  It is believed to have died on the banks of an ancient stream, and became entombed in mud where it lay for the next 130,000 years.
   
A sword based on the legendary Roman sidearm, the Gladius.
   
Smoothbore flintlock muskets, the main weapon of the foot soldiers of the Napoleonic Wars.
   
In one wing was the Root Family Museum.  It turns out that the Root Glass Company had the good fortune to have their bottle design be selected by the Coca-Cola Company in 1915 which led to their becoming the largest independent Coca-Cola bottler in the nation.
   
Coca-Cola bottles of all shapes and sizes.
   
The Root Family Museum features one of the largest Coca-Cola memorabilia collections in the world.
   
Chapman S. Root loved automobile racing and was fortunate enough to have the means to indulge his passion.  He teamed up with friend and bank president Donald E. Smith to form the Sumar Speed Equipment Team (the name Sumar is derived from their wives names).   Their cars raced at the Indianapolis 500 and Daytona starting in 1955.  Unfortunately, two Sumar drivers were killed amd Chapman shut down the Sumar operation in 1960.
   
The collection also includes two mid-century train cars, which are housed in an enclosed Train Station. The “Silver Holly,” was originally a passenger dome liner and was converted by the Root Family into a private coach equipped with a kitchen, living room and enough beds to sleep their six children. The 1948 “Hiawatha” is a fully restored Milwaukee Road Skytop Lounge car. The service ran between Chicago and Minneapolis and claimed “400 miles in 400 minutes,” including its scheduled 12 stops.
   
We headed over to the nearby Brown Art Museum features Florida historical paintings and Florida scenery.
   
This piece is called Moonlight, Hunter's Camp, Everglades.
   
Typical Florida scene back in the day.  It's good they captured old Florida in painting because there isn't too much of it left, as best I can tell.
   
 
   
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