Advertising and Stephen Foster

First, I love how bill boards can be both honest and dishonest all the same time. We needed to stop for a little while. I thought the place that advertised a 13 foot alligator would be fun. So, here’s the stuffed (not live) 13’ alligator along with a bunch of preserved alligator heads that cost from $15 to $35 dollars depending on the size. Nice advertising.

I found out that there are 163 different Florida state parks. Each one is somewhat different. The Stephen Foster Folk Culture State Park does a great job of differentiating itself. As far as anyone knows, Stephen Foster never visited the Suwanee River. All he did was use a variation of the name in a song (Swanee River). But someone decided that was enough.

The bike ride to the carillon that plays Stephen Foster songs is a nice ride. 

  

Instead of bells, these are rods of metal that are from 3 feet to 12 feet long in the carillon tower that are struck by a mechanism. We couldn’t see the actual rods, but they had models of the system.

In the museum, multiple artists spent hours making dioramas to illustrate his songs. Even though dioramas are very old-fashioned for museums, these were fascinating to see. They are only 16” deep. In the one called “Camptown Races” you could see little horses running in the back of the track and then suddenly bigger horses would rush past in the front of the track. Everything is built to perspective so that the furniture is built with the back legs much shorter than the front.

The Suwanee River is dark with tannins, but still beautiful.