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Friday, February 12, 2010

Beautiful Garbage


In late December of last year, my French-Canadian friend Marie-France hopped a plane from Montreal and landed in Naples. After laughing at my cold-weather friends for having to deal with frigid weather while I dipped freshly-pedicured toes into the pool, of course I'd look like a maniac as we bundled up in scarves and winter jackets during one of the most frigid weeks in the history of South Florida. Oranges were dying, the homeless were screwed, and Marie's fingertips were turning into colors you could only find on etsy. Alas, everything to do in South Florida is outside, unless you want to see a movie or go to church, but we tried to make the most of it. After browsing through Weird Florida at the Barnes & Noble, with my trusty G.P.S. as our guide, we found a town that merited visiting: Lake Placid, Florida, the mural and caladium capital of the world. What awaited us in Lake Placid was much more than caladium, however: clowns, religious signs ("Jesus is the Reason for the Season!") and beautiful garbage cans decorated the sparse town like a virus. And it was a virus we documented as we hopped into my Chevy with my fiance Ed and carted our asses to Lake Placid.

Lake Placid's Chamber of Commerce site insists, "Large mouth bass are plentiful in the lakes, with six to eight pounders caught regularly. Bluegills, shell crackers and crappies are plentiful as well and provide excellent eating." Until I ate fried alligator tail a few weeks later, I would have said that "crappies" sounded like the most delicious thing on earth. But while you're busy looking for crappies, where do you throw away all of your crap?

Why, in one of Lake Placid's garbage cans, of course.



Alas, while Toby's Clown School was closed that Saturday, we at least got to get a few great pictures with random, frightening clowns on our trip. Here I am on a bench next to the Visitor's Center, which was closed. It was mighty frightening to read later that although Lake Placid has less than 2,000 residents, there were about fifteen police cars parked outside.


Below is Marie-France riding the Crazy Train to South Central Florida.



And lastly, how could I describe the "Town of Murals" without at least posting some?







Are you "looking for some fun and excitement?" Watch a video on Lake Placid's wonderful tourist industry! Just make sure you don't notice the Burger King looming under the American flag.



And visit Marie-France's kickass flickr here where you can view more photos of Lake Placid as well as a lot of really amazing photography that she does.

1 comments:

John McCasland said...

Does one get some sort of degree, certificate, etc.if you graduate from clown school. If so, it would look good on a resume.