My vacation.

[fatrooster]

Went back to my hometown of Jacksonville, Florida to visit my family and thought I would share my trip with you guys. I grew up in Fla and left when I was 30 years old and have been living in Nevada for 17 years. So going home is quite a treat. One of the big things on my "to do list" is eating great southern food. Mostly farm food like black eyed peas, butter beans, okra and collard greens but I also make it a point to go to a Fish Camp resturaunt to eat seafood and swamp grub. I went to a place called Clarks Fish Camp and got the swamp platter. A fish camp is a place where you dock your boat and go fishing for the day, come back and clean your fish at the dock. These fish camps became meeting places where men would go fish, drink and have cook outs. Some fish camps started renting boats and selling food and eventually they turned into resturaunts on the water. The owners are now millionares with giant elaborate resturaunts. Clarks happened to be remodeling and had this sign out front in the parking lot.

About fifteen years ago the bathrooms got flooded and a gator got in one of them prompting the current sign.
Like I said, I got the swamp platter. Catfish, crab, frog legs, gator tail, and turtle. Lord God almighty it was GOOD!

Here I am chowing down on the great food. Gator tail in my right hand and a frog leg in my left hand.

Heres a peak at a piece of the menu. I thought you guys would like this picture.

My Nephew ordered up a steak. None of us knew how big the steaks were at this place. No, he did not eat it all.

Heres part of the family getting ready for grub.

In the West it is not uncommon to see mule deer and elk heads on the wall. Well the same is true in Florida except for its all about gators.

This is a full body mount of a gator that looked to be about 12-13 feet long. Notice how his mouth protruds on one side. I got up under the mouth and found that this gator had an extra big tooth where the growth was. Maybe a gator wisdom tooth? Ha ha.

Here is a Large Mouth Bass that had interbred with a pirhana.

Here is a strange beast made out of salt water sea sponge. The teeth are made out of the jaws of a shark. He stood about 7' high.

Here is a view of the resturaunt from out on the dock. Wish I could've gotten there in the day light to get some pics.

I'll be back later to post more pictures of my trip. fatrooster.

 

[rackman]

Looks like you had a great time. Thanks for sharing with us fatrooster!

 

[whiskeybent]

Looks like you had a fun trip. That bass piranha thing looks like a dang monster.

 

[wackemstackem]

Looks like you had a great time do you have any good recipes for fried okra. Its the one thing I truly miss about the south!

 

[B_BOP_A_LU_LU]

Dang Fat Banty!

Looks like you had fun & it had to be warmer than home?



God is Great!
Life is Good!
And People are Crazy!

I love not acting my age,
Damn I love my NASCAR race,
And Hell yes I love my Truck!
And a good BBQ!
I am Medicine And I am Poison!
What Voltage of Cordless Sawzall are you running & what's your quickest Drive-By at hackin the Horns off of RoadKills?

 

[Aaron84]

Your post made me want to purchase a plane ticket to Florida just to eat some of that food looks so dang tasty. Thanks for sharing.

 

[ARCHERYBUG]

LOOKS LIKE A GOOD TIME DREW !!!

 

[overton]

That's a great looking meal Fatrooster.

 

[eelgrass]

That's awesome Drew!

I hear turtles get big back there. Any photos?

Eel

it's not a 40 incher but it's closer than the last 40 incher you posted....

JB

 

[rutnbuck]

Wow nice teeth!! Looks good.

Rutnbuck

 

[HuntinFool]

That looks like a heart attack on a plate, but I'd eat it.

 

[fatrooster]

Back at my parents house I was reading the family bible and came accross a story about a blanket that my Great Grandmother had made back in the 1860's. I asked my Mother about it and she went into a closet and pulled out the blanket. In the book it reads that my Great Grandmother had woven cotton to make the fabric and used different colored plants to make the dye to color it.

Here is the blanket with my Dad who is 92 years old. He's pretending to be asleep and snoring. He's quite a jokester.

Here is a painting of my Great Grandmother who made the blanket.

So a couple of days later we decided to go to my Dads home farm in Gretna, Florida. The farm house was built in 1901 and all 9 kids in my Dads family were born in this house.

Here is a picture of Mrs. fatrooster sitting on the front porch. I wish I knew half of the history and the people who have sat on this front porch shelling peas, pecans and just telling stories. As I grew up I can remember all of my Aunts and Uncles and family members sitting on this porch during family reunions. I spent many an hour with my Grandmother rocking on this porch up until 1981 when she died at 101 years old.

Here is a picture of the brick column that my wife Mrs. fatrooster was resting her feet on. So many people have rested thier feet on this column that the corners of the brick are worn off.

Here is a framed certificate that sits on the wall in the house.

This old farm house is where I learned to hunt. I started out chasing tree squirrels and rabbits and graduated to Bob White quail, dove, hogs and White tailed deer.
Thats all for today. I'll post more pictures tomorrow. fatrooster.

 

[ELKOHUNTER]

Now I know where the jokester in you comes from ;-)! Looks like you had a good time!

("For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:8-9")

 

[kingfish]

That's Mrs. Thinrooster Mr.!!!!Great pictures thanks for sharing!!! Does this mean your a Florida gator fan????

 

[fatrooster]

Yeah baby! Go Gators!!!!!!!! fatrooster.

 

[feddoc]

fatrooster, that is some pretty neat family farm history there. Good post.

Compromise, hell! ... If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?

 

[fatrooster]

Went to Georgia to see my Aunt Mable who is currently 101 years old and if she makes it to April she will be 102. I'm not gonna post pictures of her because she is not well and in respect for her I will keep them in the family. But I do have scenery pictures of Georgia. First, here is a picture of a cotton field. If you look closely you might be able to see a deer hunting stand up on stilts in the background up against the woods.

Pecan tree grove. These pecan farms are all over in Georgia.

If you need a deer stand just go to the local hardware store and pick out the size you need.

When I got back to Jacksonville I went to the Easts version of Cabela's which is Gander Mountain. A nice hunting store geared towards white tails and hogs and turkeys but I'll take Cabela's or Sportsmans Warehouse anyday.

Also went on a tour of an old lighthouse in St. Augustine, Florida.

Heres the view from the top of the lighthouse looking out into the Atlantic Ocean in which I spent many a day playing in throughout my early life.

Thats the end of my pictures of Florida. When we flew back to Salt Lake and began to drive home we stopped off in Wendover for a cup of coffee. While leaving town I came accross this guy welcoming us back to Nevada. It was sad to leave my old home and family behind me but good to be back in my new home state and good to see Wendover Will. fatrooster.

 

[beavis14]

very cool guys

 

[fatrooster]

Looks like Wendover Will has got a black eye. Those are kinda common in Nevada, lol. fatrooster.

 

[bryan21]

well drew it looks like its in your genes to live to be old hahaha. great pics love seeing and hearing about stuff from way back

 

[hornkiller]

I was wanting to see some pics and here how the trip was. Im gald you had a great time!

 

[wvbowhunterinalaska]

Nice vacation there Rooster. Sometimes you have to get back to where it all began for us all, hearth and home. I haven't been home to WV in about 3 years; unfortunately it was for the funeral of my beloved uncle who my parents named me after. He gave me my first rifle, my first bow, and many other fond memories. In fact my wife did up a photo album and on the first page is two pictures: one of me and my uncle sitting in the living room of the old family house when I was about 5-6 years old and the other of my then 1 year old son sitting on his lap in the same room (I wasn't home for that trip; I was deployed at that time). Hope you have many more fond trips home to see all your loved ones.
WVBOWAK

 

[excavator]

Fat Rooster,

That was some pretty cool stuff to see and read.

Thanks,

Excavator

 

[fatrooster]

Thanks guys for the kind words. It definitely will make you homesick for a long time.
WVbowhunterinAlaska, are you a long ways from home or what? fatrooster.

 

[wvbowhunterinalaska]

LAST EDITED ON Feb-09-11 AT 02:13AM (MST)[p]Yeah, but not as far as I have been. Spent the last 4 years in Alaska, moved here to bright and sunny New Mexico after getting out of the service. Before Alaska I spent 7 years in Texas, and the farthest I have been from home was halfway around the world while I was deployed for 6 months almost, so been far away, not as far away, and god damn too far away; LOL! You know homesickness is bad when you are watching the tourist service announcement for the state of West Virginia before the movie "We Are Marshall" and tears start to well up in your eyes, showing all the sights that I took for granted growing up there. One thing I miss is hardwood trees, actual trees that have trunks bigger than your forearm. Out here most of what people call trees, I call brush. Another thing I miss is neighbors who are like family, I had free hunting rights to almost every piece of property that surrounded my parents property. If they found you killed a deer on their side of the fence, they helped you load the thing into the truck or onto the 4 wheeler and help haul it out. Seems like good honest folks are hard to come by everywhere else I have been, but in West Virginia they seem to be everywhere you turn. Case in point, while I was in the military I was traveling for a temp duty assignment in OKC. We had a lay over in Houston, I was standing at the gate we needed to be at and this guy walked up to me and started talking to me. He worked at the airport at the gate counter and had noticed my WVU Mountaineeer baseball cap. He mentioned the little town he was from, I knew roughly where it was at, he mentioned a place he still goes back to trout fish at, I told him my uncle had a fishing camp in the same area. He and I shot the bull for about 15 minutes, when he walked away the guys traveling had been looking at this the entire time trying to figure out what the hell was going on. One guy asked me, "Was that guy your cousin?", now all jokes aside not everyone is related to each other in West Virginia, but when one person from West Virginia sees another person from West Virginia especially when you see each other outside the state of WV, we tend to treat each other like family, and that was how I explained it to them; funny thing is they still didn't get it. Okay enough rambling I need to get going.
WVBOWAK