New Smyrna Beach & Sugar Mill Ruins (whew!)
From Okeechobee to New Smyrna Beach Florida – Sugar Mill Ruins RV Park. A large family-owned park nestled in the woods 5 miles from the Atlantic coast. Campsites are spaced among the palm trees and there are many nice places to walk. There was a nice COLD pool but the sun was great!
A sudden fear of lift gates arms has Odie stressed at times but he can still find time for a long afternoon nap in the sun.
Just down the road are ruins of the Cruger-dePeyster Sugar Mill, established in 1830 and abandoned in 1835 after a Seminole raid.
The dogs enjoyed the nicely done nature trail and the Mill had some cool features including a train of large metal kettles. Milling sugar sounds like a dangerous job for the slaves involved in the work, we didn’t see any safety features on the cane crushers.
The actual sugar-making story from their website:
- a steam-powered can crusher extracted the juice.
- 2. the liquid was heated in a series (or train) of kettles, gradually thickening until it was ladled into wooden cooling troughs.
- 3. the crystallized sugar was packed in barrels and stored in a drying room called the purgery. it drained for several weeks before shipping, and some factories made run from the molasses that dropped out.producing sugar was a long, hot dangerous job — especially near the powerful can crusher that could crush a slaves arm before anyone could shut it down. No wonder sugar was a prized commodity. Like oil today.
MK’s Mom and Stepdad were staying on the beach so we visited often and had some great dinners together. I didn’t get pictures except for the 2 birthdays we celebrated – Alan and Phil.
Phil had carrot cake and Alan had key lime pie – in pie AND beer form!
We also found a very tasty beer we really enjoyed from Playalinda Brewing – Orange Coconut Cream Lager – tastes better than it sounds!
Just some random January beach pictures…
