Saturday, January 26, 2013 – Cocoa (yep, we’re still here…but not for long…)

            We had a lovely day!  And a nice evening last night having drinks on the “back deck” of our new friends down the dock.

            So after breakfast this morning, we made ourselves look presentable and jumped in the car and headed off to visit the little town of Winter Park which is about an hour away from Cocoa inland.  Florida is flat, flat, flat and scrub, but that makes for relatively speedy roadways, and the speed limit here is 70 mph most times.   Winter Park was originally named Lakeview in 1858 and re-named Osceola in 1870. Eleven years later, the name Winter Park was chosen by its founders, Loring Chase and Oliver Chapman, who during an informal discussion, decided they wanted the name to be something about a park in winter - thus the name Winter Park. (I copied this from the website of Winter Park so as not to be completely accused of plagiarizing)

            We actually found a convenient three-hour parking spot just off the main drag and started exploring this lovely town.  Our first stop was the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, which houses the most comprehensive collection of Tiffany anywhere.  I’ll steal another descriptive piece from the visitor’s guide that says, “The Morse has work in every medium and type produced by Louis C. Tiffany and his companies.  These include paintings, jewelry, blown glass, leaded glass, enamels, pottery, mosaics, and art and architectural objects from the most personal design project of his career, his Long Island country estate, Laurelton Hall.”  Really, the exhibit is fabulous!  In addition to reproduction rooms of his estate (yes, I think I could have lived there!) the exhibit includes a chapel interior designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany which he designed and exhibited for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.  It was indescribably spectacular.  Actually, it’s amazing that the chapel interior exists at all now since its exhibition at the Chicago Fair.  After the Fair, the chapel was disassembled and installed at Tiffany Glass and Decorating Co. in New York.  Two years later, it was purchased for the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York, which was then under construction.  Somebody misunderstood their instructions (my opinion) and installed the chapel in the basement crypt.  By 1916 the chapel was abandoned and deteriorating.  Tiffany re-acquired the remaining parts and brought them to his estate, Laurelton Hall where he set about restoring the chapel.   Unfortunately, after Tiffany’s death in 1933, after the contents of his house were sold, and after a fire destroyed much of what was left, the chapel had fallen into terrible disrepair (even though it was not actually in the fire).  Shortly after the fire, the museum’s director, Jeannette McKean, visited Laurelton Hall and rescued as much as she could.  Now after painstaking restoration, the chapel is on exhibit and definitely worth the visit.

            Another really interesting bit of information we learned from one of the docents at the museum was that Louis Comfort Tiffany did not design all the lampshades he is given so much credit for!  They were designed by Clara Driscoll.  Born in 1861 in Tallmadge, Ohio, Clara Wolcott Driscoll was among the many young women who flocked to New York City in the late 1800s seeking respectable careers, particularly in the burgeoning field of industrial arts. After graduating from Cleveland's Western Reserve School of Design for Women in 1882, she attended the Metropolitan Museum Art School in New York City and was hired by Tiffany around 1888. In 1892 she was appointed head of the newly-formed Women's Glass Cutting Department, which eventually employed as many as thirty-five women. In addition to managing a large staff, Driscoll was responsible for creating designs for a wide range of objects and, in fact, designed most of the firm's lampshades and mosaic bases.  (I also copied this from the website of Antiques and Fine Art).  So – who knew!!  We were also told that if Tiffany didn’t like a design, he would smash it to bits with his cane in front of the poor artist who had labored extensively to create it.  Nevertheless, the Morse Museum was one of the most interesting I have ever visited.  Maybe I just really needed to get off the boat!

            After so much culture, we decided to have lunch and since the main street was full of many outdoor cafes and shops, we decided just to stroll around until something struck our fancy.  We were enticed into a Turkish restaurant called The Bosphorous, and the food was delicious.  They served us enough so that we were able to take most of it back to the boat for another meal. 

            It was a beautiful, sunny day, temperature in the 80’s and not a cloud in the sky.  Since it was Saturday, there were tourists everywhere, but we didn’t have any trouble getting a table and weren’t rushed to finish our meal so someone else could have our table.  The only rush we felt was the need to get back to the car as our free three hours was up!

            I did find a unique little spice shop that I darted into and purchased some ground Rosemary that I have been looking for for sometime.  Now we’ll have lamb chops on the grill with Rosemary if we ever get hungry again!

            Back to the boat for some R & R.  I think it’s going to be cereal for dinner tonight as we are both still stuffed!  It was a great day, but I am still ready to move on – two more days!!

            Tomorrow, since we will still have the car, we may drive over and check out Cocoa Beach (which I think is very touristy), but maybe we’ll walk on the beach, and who knows what we’ll bring home as left-overs??