The Traveler’s Almanac: Mid-Century Edition

Imagine a world in which all fictional stories are true and exist side by side. Such is the conceit of Alan Moore’s comic series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (LoEG), which takes place (at first) in a steampunk version of Victorian England and features Wilhelmina Murray, Captain Nemo, Mr. Hyde, The Invisible Man, and others among its cast of characters. The comics are fun, and the premise is absolutely intoxicating for a certain kind of imagination (e.g. the kind that happens to be stuck inside my skull).

In the back of volume two of LoEG, Moore included supplemental prose entitled “The New Traveller’s Almanac¹.” It’s a travel guide written in an “in-universe” style that explores fictional places from a wide range of literature. The Almanac, in turn, seems to be influenced by the (real world) book The Dictionary of Imaginary Places.

I own both the full run of LoEG (including the Almanac) and The Dictionary of Imaginary Places², and I love taking them off the shelf and flipping through them. At various times I started writing up entries for fictional places that don’t appear in either book. However, I’ve never committed to writing a full, fictional travel guide of my own… until now.

What follows is the first installment³ of a travel memoir in which two characters from American fiction explore their country (though they mostly stop in places the reader knows to be fictional). I leave the characters unnamed partially because I’m skittish about copyright, and partially as a game for the reader to deduce their identity. The “Mid-Century” title refers to the fact that their voyage takes place in the year 1950. With a slight suspension of disbelief, both characters could have been alive at that time.

Despite the obvious inspiration, this is not meant to be LoEG fanfiction. I made an effort to avoid places and characters that are mentioned in LoEG. In retrospect, a couple shared references snuck through, and I loved them too much to take them out.

I did a ton of research to put all this together, including reading (or skimming) over a thousand Wikipedia articles in the last six months. In fact, Wikipedia was the main way I did my research, since I read too slowly to have gone through even a fraction of the texts referenced below. I’m sure I got some of the details wrong. If you notice a mistake, please mention it in a comment! Bonus points if you can come up with a creative retcon to justify the mistake.

Mostly, I hope you have fun getting swept along by your imagination. But who knows, you might find a book you want to read or a movie you want to watch as well.

The Traveler’s Almanac: Mid-Century Edition

In retrospect, I regret offering to help Mr. Santo with his portion of the almanac while he recovered from a back injury. We started in Santa Teresa⁴, where two women were murdered outside our cheap hotel. I told my companion I was determined not to stay another minute in the city, and we left in the middle of the night. Just after dawn we passed through Forbidden Valley⁵, where our car was terrorized by massive flying reptiles. (Similar creatures are rumored to exist much further south, near Hollow Mountain⁶.) Deeper into the desert we passed through another hidden valley and stumbled upon the lakeside city of Tlapallan⁷. We were there only a short time before a terrible monster chased us back to our car, then continued to pursue us for miles at an unnatural speed. Eventually we left it behind as we sped northwards. We had meant to investigate a Mayan archeological site in the Yucatán Peninsula⁸, but Mr. Santo will simply have to explore the area himself.

After hours of hurrying back towards the USA we crossed the border into Texas, and so it is in this state that our travel guide will officially begin. My companion assures me that residents of Texas will find this entirely proper.

Texas

Right over the Mexican border is the small town of Mad Dog⁹. On the day we arrived we saw men marching (“goosestepping” said my companion) down the main road. They carried a banner that read “God’s Lightning” and chanted for the deaths of various politicians. I briefly wondered about disturbing the peace until I saw a uniformed sheriff grinning through a big cigar as he watched the procession. So much for that. Slightly further up the Rio Grande is the small town of Lonesome Dove¹⁰, a favored retirement spot for Texas Rangers.

Just outside Lonesome Dove is the vaguely defined region of southern Texas¹¹ said to be haunted by a headless horseman. The details have something to do with a doomed love triangle and apparently nothing to do with the similar legend from southern New York. On the eastern most part of this region, near the gulf of Mexico, is the abandoned town of Green Lake¹². My companion says he remembers when it was a bustling village in the late 1800s and I wonder, not for the first time, how old he is. Whatever might have been, the town has been stricken by decades of drought, and the eponymous lake is now nothing but a dried, cracked bed. The heat was going to my head as I returned to the car. My companion first called out “Ms. Nickerson” (using my divorced name) then seized my arm to keep me from stepping on a yellow-spotted lizard. Travelers are advised to watch out for these venomous creatures.

Continuing to zigzag our way up the state, we see countless blooms of mushrooms for miles outside the town of Hogan, TX¹³. Locals say the mushrooms follow the irrigation and pop up even before the water gets turned on for the day, as if they had learned the schedule. There is the town of Wham¹⁴, where folks still talk about the bastard Harrison Destry (though they all agree he is definitely not a thief). Nearby, Morganville¹⁵ is a university town that also happens to host a large population of vampires. The rural community of Salt Licks¹⁶ is plain enough, though sensitive travelers are discouraged from forming close connections with the stray dogs sometimes found in the area. Animal lovers might be more inclined to the Texas Hill Country, where it is rumored a very wealthy person has plans to build the largest zoo in the United States¹⁷. Just north of Hills Country, travelers can find Dillon¹⁸, where football is a way of life for many citizens.

Somewhat northeast is the small town of Midnight¹⁹. Looking through the town’s newspaper reveals quite a dramatic succession of recent events, including all sorts of disappearances, brawls, shootings, fires, and a curiously high number of animal attacks. At some point we pass through Arlen²⁰, an ordinary but wholesome suburban area. And returning to the eastern border of the state (this time, many hours north of Green Lake) we find the small town of Ruggsville²¹. The only thing of note is a roadside attraction called “The Museum of Monsters.” Unfortunately we are not able to recommend it as it was closed when we arrived.

We start our zag back across the northern portion (more or less) of the state and drive through Thalia²², a tiny town with a rather glum atmosphere. We stopped at a gas station in Muerto County²³ that sold sausages, but the smell of the nearby slaughterhouse put me off my appetite. Gilbert²⁴, in Lanville County, features a brothel that has become a local institution. I feel a bit embarrassed by the landmark so we continue on without stopping, heading north into the panhandle. Through the shimmering heat I could have sworn I saw a massive lizard²⁵ out towards the horizon. I dismissed the vision as a combination of dehydration and lingering stress from my prior near-miss with a venomous lizard. My appetite having returned, we stop for dinner at Old Dog restaurant in Woolybucket²⁶, a poor but hardworking community.

Oklahoma

We pass from the Texas panhandle into the Oklahoma panhandle and stop at a small campground overlooking sand dunes. Gazing out at the scene, my companion comments how the hard land of Oklahoma has helped shape the character of its residents. His words were apparently overheard by an adolescent boy, who gasped as if in revelation and scribbled something down in a pocket notebook. We later saw the eavesdropper drive away with his family in a car with an Ohio license plate²⁷.

As we drove away ourselves, traveling east along the panhandle, we discussed the area’s history of mysterious disappearances, sometimes associated with flashes of light²⁸. My companion suggests Kemp Morgan²⁹ used the electric armor that surfaced in Ragged Rock³⁰ to zap people he disliked. After spending many hours on the road with him, I get the sense my companion is being fanciful, so I try to one-up him with a tall tale of my own. I suggest the Indian god Yig³¹ transplanted Mongolian death worms³² to the area to deal with the invading settlers. My companion threw his head back and laughed, and we spent the rest of that day’s drive in cheerful conversation.

Outside Ponca City and the Keewazi nation we passed an airplane manufacturing plant³³ that had been critical in producing B-30 bombers during World War II. Flying is something of a passion for many locals. In Osage nation we talk to Lieutenant Windzer³⁴ who tells us wistfully, over several beers, about his experience flying planes for the military.

In Tulsa there are deep class divisions, with teenagers often organizing themselves into rival gangs of lower-class “greasers” and upper-class “socs” (short for socialites)³⁵. This division even extends to the city’s supernatural elements, and there is a specific House of Night preparatory school³⁶ for socs afflicted with vampirism. Meanwhile, greasers with vampirism often end up becoming drifters³⁷. Outside of Tulsa is the rural suburb of Garyville³⁸, where basketball and horses occupy much of townsfolk’s time.

Immediately south of Tulsa is the Muscogee Creek Nation, where we meet a friend of my companion’s named Lucille Self³⁹. “I hope to be as old as you some day,” she says to him after they embrace. “We heard you on the radio last night,” her husband teases. My companion grumbles something I could not make out, possibly in his native language. They also tease John about traveling with an “attractive woman.” Mr. Self must have seen me blushing, because he said with a grin “Oh don’t worry, he wouldn’t dream of looking at you that way.”

Over dinner, our hosts wonder again how the radio-drama version of my companion came to speak such outrageously broken English. He sighed, and the following story came out: “John loved his horse. Rode her for way too long. Her silver coat had gone dull and rough, and she started getting spooked easily. I warned him over and over to retire her but he didn’t listen. One day he took her riding near dawn. I wasn’t there, but best I can figure, she threw him, and then kicked him in the head.” My companion paused to sip water from his glass. “John was never the same after that. He spoke all jumbled up. If a sentence had more than one idea he’d get flummoxed. One day we were trying to fix a fence on his ranch. A damn pig kept running out, and after John caught it he looked around confused. I must have given him the same instructions a dozen times. It was a hot day and eventually I lost my temper. ‘You put pig in pen!’ I shouted. Of course, that was the day the radio men showed up to interview us, and that was their first impression of me. It didn’t matter how much talking we did after that. They had gotten a glimpse of the noble savage they wanted for their show.”

The next morning we take back roads out of Muscogee Nation and after two hours we pass Haven and then New Haven (called Ruby⁴⁰ by some of its residents). New Haven is occupied by dark skinned black folks who prohibited our entrance, though a couple of them answered our questions by the road.

Flint City⁴¹ seems like a nice, safe place to raise a family. Continuing west and slightly south we come to Summerville⁴², where supernatural entities haunt the mines and caves of the area. It is believed miners accidentally dug into the same subterranean civilization that spreads under much of central Oklahoma⁴³.

Arkansas

We backtrack somewhat (there being no good way to explore the byways of the USA in one continuous path) to cross into southern Arkansas. The Piney Woods region of southwestern Arkansas hosts the Blassenville Manor⁴⁴. Though abandoned by the 1930s, it became the site of a murder in 1936. Rumors spread about an undead “zuvembie” that resided in the upper floors of the house. Such rumors are consistent with local folklore. For example, Moonscar Island⁴⁵, outside New Orleans, is nicknamed Zuvembie Island because of the undead pirates who reportedly reside there. Though outside the scope of this guide, curious travelers are also directed to similar stories arising from the Caribbean island of Saint Sebastian⁴⁶.

Returning to southern Arkansas, Canaan⁴⁷ is a roughly triangular region of backwoods outlined by three rivers: Tularoosa Creek, Black River, and a third named for a vulgar epithet that I would rather not say. While traveling the area, I wondered aloud if the isolating geography accounted for some of the outdated opinions that seem prevalent in the area. My companion scoffed and asked me which rivers or swamps accounted for the segregated drinking fountains we saw across Texas and Oklahoma. Roughly 15 years ago, Canaan was nearly the site of a black revolt led by the “conjure-man” Saul Stark. Among Stark’s other magical abilities, he transformed those who disobeyed him into amphibious monsters. Reports differ as to whether any of these monsters still exist. If they do, they might explain sightings of the so-called “Fouke Monsters⁴⁸” around nearby Boggy Creek⁴⁹.

Travelers headed north will come across Millsburg⁵⁰, a grim place haunted by violence. A ways outside of town is the site of the historic Ross family farm⁵¹. On the banks of Helena, Arkansas we strain our vision to see a small island in the middle of the river⁵² that previously served as a base of operations for a gang of river pirates. Two hours northwest of Little Rock is the lakeside town of Prosper⁵³. Technically, Prosper was the name of the town that, since a dam broke in 1937, sits at the bottom of the lake. “Old Prosper,” as it is sometimes called, still casts influence over its modern counterpart.

Up north in the Ozarks is the unusual town of Stay More⁵⁴. Among the curious goings on is an outbreak of listlessness, which unfortunately reinforces the description of the townspeople as Stay Morons. Several credible witnesses have reported the woods that separate Stay More from surrounding towns contains fairies⁵⁵. Geologists predict that it is only a matter of time before oil is discovered elsewhere in the Ozarks⁵⁶.

Tennessee

Just over the southern border of Tennessee is the city of Luxor⁵⁷, which has a veterans hospital that helped many soldiers returning from World War 2. Heading north by rail, travelers will stop at Taulkinham⁵⁸. It is a rather bitter place, full of sinful people. The members of one family line claim to have special, innate insight into the world. In regional dialect this is called “wise blood” though in other parts of the country such abilities are called “the shine.”

Due east is Somerton⁵⁹, which features a funeral home owned by a wealthy black business man. Nearly an hour past Sumerton is the rural community of Gutshot⁶⁰, which claims to be the final resting place of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Near the center of the state is the quaint small town of Crowley Corners⁶¹. A little to the southeast is Oldfield⁶², where an equally quaint appearance belies a long history of uncanny and macabre events. The town historian, a rather theatrical man, implied some of these events might be related to a cult that was formed in Oldfield in the 1800s.

Diverting to the southeast, my companion and I drive through the Tennessee valley. As we pass through Sawyer⁶³ we admire the many creeks and streams in the area, some of which have caves along their banks. Most of the streams are tributaries to the Tennessee river. We drive along the river, past the hydroelectric dam outside Garthville⁶⁴. Eventually, we continue into the Appalachian mountains that cover Tennessee’s eastern border. It is an region with a long history of moonshining. In the 1920s and 30s, the isolated hamlet of Red Branch⁶⁵ was a hub for whiskey running. Today, nothing remains but some abandoned houses and an overgrown apple orchard with skeletal trees. North is the impoverished village of Cutter’s Gap⁶⁶, where moonshining still continues, along with a variety of old fashioned folk beliefs. Further north, a little northeast of Knoxville, is Rillow Valley, another hotbed of moonshining activity. Though this trade is always perilous, the folks in Rillow Valley⁶⁷ seem to have met with better success than their neighbors, at least for the time being.

Logically, we should continue on to the the Appalachian mountains in western North Carolina. However, I would prefer to have a thorough investigation of the south all in one section. And so, let us double back to Louisiana.

Louisiana

Up in the northwest corner of the state is is Bon Temps⁶⁸, seat of Renard Parish. The small town looks largely unchanged since the Civil War, and the same can be said for some of its inhabitants. Bon Temps is home to a branch of the Bellefleur family, whom we will encounter again in New York. Bordering Renard Parish is Chinquapin Parish⁶⁹, where friendships are among the strongest I have yet witnessed.

My companion and I travel across the northern border of Louisiana until we arrive at the Mississippi river. Then we catch a ride on the riverboat Natches Belle⁷⁰. The captain told us he had seen a glowing disk flying through the sky, and how he had a bad feeling in his gut regarding the day he would see it again. Behind the captain’s back, my companion stuck out his thumb and pinky finger and tipped his pinky up in the air in front of his face. I’ve questioned enough people to think the captain likely saw something, but I decide not to press the issue.

Further down the river is the small city of Paradise⁷¹, home of psychologist and inventor Dr. Thomas More. Near New Orleans, the riverboat stopped at an outpost that features a small museum commemorating Robert Morse’s⁷² search for confederate treasure in his ingenious, amphibious vehicle shaped like a giant white alligator. However, when we arrived, the museum proprietor announced the alligator, which had been on display for years, had been stolen the previous night. A calling card attributed the theft to The Eel⁷³. It was not the first time we would encounter his malfeasance on this journey. I felt the old itch to stay and investigate the crime, but we had to move on.

New Orleans is the home of the gothic Seven Doors Hotel⁷⁴, where a man was murdered in the 1920s for practicing black magic. My companion and I decide to stay elsewhere for the night, less out of concern the hotel is haunted and more because locals tell us it has a spider problem. We ended up staying with an acquaintance of my companion, who lived in a rundown tenement building⁷⁵ in the French quarter. The walk there took us past the equally gothic Gracey Manor⁷⁶, which is also said to be haunted. On the road the next morning we pass Derceto⁷⁷, yet another haunted mansion. It seems the dead of Louisiana are not content to lie down.

Traveling back east along the bottom of the state, we come to a community in the bayou the locals refer to as The Bathtub⁷⁸. The people there look after each other and help each other weather the frequent tropical storms in the area. The nearby town of Eve’s Bayou⁷⁹ is the heart of the local hoodoo community. Slightly further east, the twin towns of Port Felicity⁸⁰ and Mercy⁸¹ are the sites of on-again off-again conflict between shrimp fishers and oilmen over use of the coastal waters. Many locals have concerns that oil drilling is going to have disturbing, long-term effects on the local wildlife. A little further inland is St. Josephine⁸², on the edge of a large sugarcane farm. It is from this point that my companion and I double back to explore Mississippi.

Mississippi

We cross into Mississippi near Vicksburg, and quickly arrive at the remains of the Blackadder plantation⁸³. The former plantation owners claimed to be an offshoot of England’s historic Blackadder family⁸⁴, though some consider this lineage dubious. Whatever the case may be, the family sold their plantation after the Civil War caused them to go bankrupt. They were later punished in an elaborate revenge plot by a former slave. The family lapsed almost entirely into obscurity after these events. However, my research revealed a grandson of Blount Blackadder who joined the Office of Strategic Services. While there, he gained a small promotion for introducing “the punishment of the pump,” a cruel means of interrogation his grandfather perfected on slaves on his plantation. Some distance away, Skully’s Landing⁸⁵ is a partially dilapidated mansion on another decaying plantation. The mansion might or might not contain a ghost.

The similarity between these first two stops in the state is not a coincidence. Much of Mississippi is a crumbling ruin of slavery times afflicted by poverty, bigotry, and vice. This tendency reaches its most prosaic in the dusty, northern county of Yoknapatawpha⁸⁶, where the rich are miserable, the poor are miserable, and reports of insanity, rape, perversion, and murder have become banal. Continuing south, the town of Chickory Creek⁸⁷ was the site of demonic possession and several resulting murder sprees. (Not to be confused with Chickory Creek, Kentucky⁸⁸, an equally small but entirely more wholesome place that also has connections to supernatural Christian entities). Near the middle of the state are the remains of the Candyland Plantation⁸⁹. The mansion was never rebuilt after being destroyed in a rather dramatic fashion. Calvin Candie (or his designer) modeled aspects of the plantation after the Falconhurst Plantation, which we shall encounter later.

In Ford County my companion and I pass through the town of Clanton⁹⁰. Here, Confederate flags are flown, if possible, even more prominently than in the rest of the state, and the KKK has a brazen presence. We continue through the community of Two Rivers⁹¹ without stopping, as it appears to be a very glum place.

The swamps of southern Mississippi⁹² feature local legends of a monster with the improbable moniker “Gator-Face.” Our final stop before moving on to neighboring Alabama is the coastal town of Bois Sauvage⁹³, a tragic but stubbornly hopeful community blighted by poverty, addiction, and occasionally, ghosts.

Alabama

Alabama features much of the same post-slavery depression as Mississippi, though there are a few bright spots as we shall see. In the deep south of Alabama is the small town of Greenbow⁹⁴, where some locals have a distasteful tradition of naming their children after Ku Klux Klan leaders. In the piney woods along Alabama’s southern border are the charred remains of a laboratory⁹⁵ constructed by John Corliss Cranmer. Mr. Cranmer is believed to have gone insane after the events that led to the destruction of his laboratory, rumored to involve a monstrous, gelatinous creature. A similar sequence of events later occurred in New York, and we will explore those in more detail later.

Maycomb⁹⁶ was the site of a sensational trial several years ago. The nearby Wazoo City⁹⁷ also has a proud tradition of law and order. An hour north by car is Zephyr⁹⁸, another town well-connected to the KKK. However, the town also features a civil rights museum and is not without its charm. Travelers are advised to avoid the nearby river, which is home to a massive creature known to the locals as Ol’ Moses. Outside of of Zephyr is the plantation Manderlay⁹⁹, where slavery persisted for at least 70 years past the end of the civil war. Speaking of the civil war, Alabama is home to the Owl Creek Bridge¹⁰⁰, from which a Confederate sympathizer was hanged. Curiously, the bridge now features a plaque that declares it the site of a “secret miracle¹⁰¹,” though no further explanation is given.

We drove north, through Reedyville¹⁰², and stop in Bowden¹⁰³ for gas. The most interesting things about Bowden were the machinations of its wealthy but wicked Hubbard family. However, since their lusting and scheming came to a rather pathetic end during the beginning of this century, there is little to distinguish the town from any other location.

Spectre¹⁰⁴ is home to several circus performers; though charming, the town does not quite live up to the stories about it. In Pinecone¹⁰⁵, the primary employment is manufacturing rifles. Some townsfolk confess anxiety that this makes the area more dangerous. While there are an unusually high number of fatal accidents in the area, most of them do not involve firearms. Continuing northeast, one comes across the grounds of the ghastly Falconhurst plantation¹⁰⁶. The plantation was noted not so much for its cruelty, which was standard, but for the sadistic perversions of its owners. The men enslaved there were often forced to fight to the death for the amusement of onlookers. Meanwhile, the enslaved women were forced to satisfy the sexual appetites of the plantation owners. Some perversions have clung to the place well past the end of the Civil War. Slightly above the plantation on a map is the town of Whistle Stop¹⁰⁷. Excepting a historic incident of murder and unwitting cannibalism, it is an entirely quaint locale. Travelers should try the fried tomatoes, which are a local specialty (and unlikely to be confused with human remains).

Georgia

The northwest corner of Georgia features the Cahulawassee River¹⁰⁸ and the surrounding wilderness. Travelers are discouraged from visiting this area, as the locals are quite inhospitable. East and slightly south is the town of Cold Sassy¹⁰⁹, where the citizens are incorrigible gossips. In Atlanta, my companion and I stop to watch an a cappella performance at Barden University¹¹⁰.

Roughly 20 miles south of Atlanta is a reconstruction of the Tara plantation¹¹¹ mansion. The house was relatively spared during Sherman’s march but later burned to the ground in an unrelated incident. Notably, the current construction does not recreate the ugly, haphazard design of the mansion from when the plantation was in its prime. The Architectural Digest quipped that the plantation’s managers learned every wrong lesson during reconstruction and ended up with a revisionist legacy. Nearby is the site of the former Twelve Oaks plantation¹¹², which popularized the idea of cousin marriage as a southern tradition.

Meriwether County, and in particular the town of Delano¹¹³, is the site of multiple disappearances of young men. It is not clear if this is the work of the same serial murderer who is haunting Augusta Falls¹¹⁴, though the victims there are young girls. Citizens in nearby communities express concern that if left unchecked, these dark crimes might eventually spread to more idyllic rural communities such as North Falls¹¹⁵. The neighboring Salty Creek¹¹⁶ is also a quaint small town, though it was the site of a tragic romance during the anti-Japanese fervor of World War II.

Almost exactly due east of Delano is the town of McCoy¹¹⁷. This area of the state was wracked by grotesque poverty during the great depression and the process of industrialization that disenfranchised smaller family farms. One of the newer businesses in the state is Transchemical, next to the town of Claybourne¹¹⁸. Claybourne is noted for the traditional healing methods practiced by some of its residents, who can also commune with spirits. The residents are often at odds with their rowdier neighbors in Hazzard county¹¹⁹, though they have sometimes cooperated to confront or outwit corrupt law enforcement.

We continued south into a very rural area of the state. We were going to stop at the Dew Drop Inn¹²⁰ for the night, only to discover it was actually a brothel. My companion took over driving. While I slept in the back seat he drove around the segregated community of Estherville¹²¹, down through Grant County¹²², and eventually stopped in the empty parking lot of a small baseball park. In the morning, we read a plaque claiming that Frankenstein’s monster had played baseball¹²³ at that very location during the second world war.

Florida

Just outside Jacksonville is the former Camdless Bay plantation¹²⁴, which was run, inexplicably, by James Burbank, a man generally opposed to slavery. While in the northeastern corner of the state we stopped to take in the Ocean Harbor Oceanarium¹²⁵ and talk to scientists who are studying how sea animals transitioned to land animals far back in evolutionary history.

Later, as we drove south through St. Augustine, my companion tells me a story from the 1700s of a half-Indian woman named Atala¹²⁶. She had inherited not only Christianity but also a rather melodramatic outlook from her Spanish father. When she was unable to marry her adoptive brother due to a vow of chastity she had taken, she chose to resolve the conflict by swallowing poison and thus dying. I asked if he had a connection to Atala or her family. He snorted and told me someone had told him the story on a train. It had seemed like a reasonable question when I asked it, but I fear I offended him.

We next spent some time searching the Big Scrub, on the edge of Harney County¹²⁷, for a river¹²⁸ that is reported to grant wishes. We ended up getting quite turned around and were helplessly lost for at least half a day. I twice nearly stepped on a rattlesnake and once we saw a bear in the distance. I mused that one would practically have to be a hermit to live here. Eventually we came across a man who identified himself as a member of the Baxter clan¹²⁹. He showed us back to our starting point and explained that the river can only be found by those who need it most. Apparently wanting to write about it for a travel guide does not qualify.

On the western edge of the state, along the gulf coast, is Charles Foster Kane’s massive estate Xanadu¹³⁰, perched atop a private mountain. Even from the distance of the public road, the mountain fails to dwarf the mansion. Further west, in the panhandle, is Gracetown¹³¹. Similar to Claybourne (see above), some citizens claim the ability to talk to spirits or “haints.” Gracetown is also home to a reform school with a dark reputation.

The charming town of Fort Repose¹³², approximately 35 miles northwest of Orlando, is sometimes given the morbid designation of “Florida town most likely to survive a nuclear Armageddon.” (Others have argued this designation is better suited to the small Florida Keys community of Twicetown¹³³.)

The Ocanara Army Air Base¹³⁴ was the site of a tragic accident in World War II related to one colonel’s drinking problems and the racist attitudes of several other colonels. These attitudes continue to be a problem in the neighboring Latchahie County¹³⁵, which features a chapter of the KKK as well as the Fountain of Youth Motel. (The motel does indeed feature a fountain with quite salubrious effects. The proprietor, Mrs. DeLyon, said she is excited for other attractions to come to the area.)

We drove south, past the town of Vingo¹³⁶, and the air gets more humid every mile. Just north of Boca Raton we came across the Hotel de Cocoanut¹³⁷ resort and decided to turn in for the night. It is a handsome establishment that has a long history of hosting millionaires, architects, opera singers, and at least a few con men. In the morning, we traveled due west and came to the Black Bayou¹³⁸. The waters and woods in this area are said to be occupied by an ancient species of sub-humans who have a third eye protruding from the part of their skull that would ordinarily cover the pituitary gland. Off the southwestern coast, in the Ten Thousand Islands region, is the family-run amusement park of Swamplandia!¹³⁹, where visitors can watch people wrestle alligators. This is probably a good time to mention I have been to Florida twice before. Once to Crocodile Island (near the Swamplandia! park) to investigate poachers, and once to the Florida Keys to search for a kidnapping victim and a particular island called Black Key (both ended up being rather near the private artist retreat on Duma Key¹⁴⁰).

Before leaving the state, we should mention the Everglades, and especially how it hosts a golden staircase¹⁴¹ that rises into the sky. The stairs lead to the land of Khoire, which is beyond the scope of this guide (being technically outside the United States), and anyway the path is guarded by a rather fierce blue flamingo.

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The Traveler’s Almanac: Mid-Century Edition

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