Off to Weeki Wachee Mermaids!

But first.. How do we get Boo in his throne in the morning to travel safe and high enough to see out all the windows. Boo needs to see where we are going so that he does not get car sick. So after a number of tries I got this setup working great. First we take one of those folding crates and fill it with his food and stuff. Left over space we get to fill.

The crate goes in first in the back seat

I cut a piece of 1/4 inch plywood and glued some cleats on it so that when its turned over it will not slide off the crate.

Ready for Boo's bed to be put on top.

I pull some of the seat belt up and then tie a knot in it to create a loop that  I then thread through a large dog collar that then goes to Boo's harness. 

The result! Boo has room to move and if we hit anything the seatbelt will lock and he will be held in place in his harness.

Also the Prius has this great cover thing that you can use as a  dryer during the days travel. Just remember that they are there when you open all the windows at 60 miles an hour.  

Mary and I both have heard of the Weeki Wachee Mermaids since we were little kids so I planned our route so that we could swing by and see if it was still in operation. 

Well they are and we just missed the Mermaid show. Dang!


So on we went to the next throw back hotel. Howard Johnson's. Yep good old Ho Jo's.

Good price and good honest food. Now we just have to see how we sleep with all the truckers and young kids yelling and crying in the room next store. But ... never mind thats what ear plugs are for. :-)

Now some history of the Mermaids of Weeki Wachee:

The History of Weeki Wachee Springs

The Seminole Indians named the spring “Weeki Wachee,” which means “little spring” or “winding river.” The spring is so deep that the bottom has never been found. Each day, more than 117 million gallons of clear, fresh 72-degree water bubbles up out of subterranean caverns. Deep in the spring, the surge of the current is so strong that it can knock a scuba diver’s mask off. The basin of the spring is 100 feet wide with limestone sides and there, where the mermaids swim, 16 to 20 feet below the surface, the current runs a strong five miles an hour. It’s quite a feat for a mermaid to stay in one place in such a current.

The Weeki Wachee River winds its way 12 miles to the Gulf of Mexico.

In 1946, Newton Perry, a former U.S. Navy man who trained SEALS to swim underwater in World War II, scouted out Weeki Wachee as a good site for a new business. At the time, U.S. 19 was a small two-lane road. All the other roads were dirt; there were no gas stations, no groceries, and no movie theaters. More alligators and black bears lived in the area than humans.

The spring was full of old rusted refrigerators and abandoned cars. The junk was cleared out and Newt experimented with underwater breathing hoses and invented a method of breathing underwater from a free-flowing air hose supplying oxygen from an air compressor, rather than from a tank strapped onto the back. With the air hose, humans could give the appearance of thriving twenty feet underwater with no breathing apparatus.

An 18-seat theater was built into the limestone, submerged six feet below the surface of the spring, so viewers could look right into the natural beauty of the ancient spring.

Newt scouted out pretty girls and trained them to swim with air hoses and smile at the same time. He taught them to drink Grapette, a non-carbonated beverage, eat bananas underwater and do aquatic ballets. He put a sign out on U.S. 19: WEEKI WACHEE.

The first show at the Weeki Wachee Springs underwater theater opened on October 13, 1947 -- the same day that Kukla, Fran and Ollie first aired on that newfangled invention called television, and one day before Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier. The mermaids performed synchronized ballet moves underwater while breathing through the air hoses hidden in the scenery.

In those days, cars were few. When the girls heard a car coming, they ran to the road in their bathing suits to beckon drivers into the parking lot, just like sirens of ancient lore lured sailors to their sides. Then they jumped into the spring to perform.

In the 1950s, Weeki Wachee was one of the nation’s most popular tourist stops. The attraction received worldwide acclaim. Movies were filmed at the spring, like “Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid.” Sights at the park included the mermaid shows, orchid gardens, jungle cruises, and Indian encampment and a new beach. The mermaids took etiquette and ballet lessons.

Weeki Wachee’s heyday began in 1959, when the spring was purchased by the American Broadcasting Co. (ABC) and was heavily promoted. ABC built the current theater, which seats 500 and is embedded in the side of the spring 16 feet below the surface. ABC also developed themes for the underwater shows, with elaborate props, lifts, music, and story lines such as Underwater Circus, the Mermaids and the Pirates, and Underwater Follies. The mermaids performed Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Snow White, and Peter Pan.

In the 1960s, girls came from as far away as Tokyo to try out for the privilege of becoming a mermaid. The glamorous mermaids performed eight shows a day to sold out crowds -- as many as half a million people a year came to see the Weeki Wachee mermaids. Weeki Wachee Springs employed 35 mermaids, who took turns swimming in the shows and captivating the crowds by playing football and having picnics underwater. Some of the mermaids lived in the mermaid cottages out behind the attraction. The mermaids wore one-piece suits and were treated like royalty wherever they went in Florida.

All sorts of people stopped to see the mermaids, even Elvis. Don Knotts, Esther Williams, and Arthur Godfrey all came to Weeki Wachee.