Florida Roadside Attractions & Abandoned Places on FL A1A - Where Ponce De Leon Landed! Veterans Day

and so it begins along highway a1a at juan ponce de leon landing park there's nothing more beautiful to me than waves crashing upon the shore in the dawn's early light it's a cool crisp morning here on the east coast of florida welcome to the atlantic and so it begins florida roadside attractions and abandoned places a series i started in summer 2020 and it is some of the most fun i've had making videos i have such a great time just putting stuff together creating putting it up there putting it out for people to watch and thank you for watching i appreciate that i i am i'm a blessed man and i'm really thankful for being able to have the liberties to come out here fire up the camera upload it to youtube and to have anyone watch it all for all of you to watch thank you so much i cannot thank you enough for that i just wanted to say that up here up front in the video it is veterans day and also i want to uh give a shout out and a salute to all the veterans out there thank you so much for your service i appreciate you guys so definitely we're starting this video out here we're dedicating it to you and where am i exactly i am on the beach of melbourne florida melbourne just south of cocoa beach and cape canaveral melbourne is kind of a home away from home for me it is one of the first beaches i visited with my family upon a vacation we had a great aunt and uncle that lived here in melbourne they have they passed many years ago now but we used to come out here and visit them and also my dad and his entire family used to visit them when they were kids in the 60s so there's there's some roots out here in this area so i always enjoy coming out here and uh and just and just enjoying the beach the the gulf coast beaches and the atlantic beaches are so much different a lot more a lot more waves and surf out here actually we will talk about a professional uh a famous professional surfer that came from this area we'll actually talk about that a little later but we're getting ahead and i'm rambling here in the in the beginning the video right behind the dunes here over past the beach access there's a statue commemorating this precise location this stretch of beach and that is what i want to start off with we have a few places actually we have many places to go today but i just wanted to start this video off properly and thank you all for watching i am so blessed to be out here it is absolutely gorgeous as the sun is coming up behind me i'd like to welcome you again welcome back to the channel and welcome if it's your first time i am tampa j there's much ahead the cool thing about this beach access that ponce de leon landing is it has a public restroom and it's absolutely free first come first serve and right here is the man the legend perhaps one of the greatest conquistadors the country of spain has ever known one of the most famous ones in florida that's for sure the man who first stepped foot on it juan ponce de leon i'd say he's about 13 feet tall over 20 on that platform he is huge check this out this is one awesome looking statue he's holding a crucifix in his right hand and uh he's pointing back at spain and looks like a map a scroll some sort of a scroll all rolled up there and a giant sword right there and i was reading on that boot over there there's an inscription it was uh molded by rafael picone of rockledge florida which is just right up the road and uh he was made right here locally check out his boots now you can see it better the sun is blasting this way so you can see it better from right here there you go that is awesome this sits right here before the park free to come up take photos selfies post them on your social media do whatever you like with them send them back to grandma and right out by the road be on this split rail fence there's a little bench there you can actually sit and read the history it's going to be kind of loud because highway a1a is right there before the sign but i'm going to give you the the cliff notes as they say of the possible vicinity of juan ponce de leon's landing in april 15 13 it has long been thought that this event took place near saint augustine but based upon studies of leone's compass headings that did not account for the inability of the 16th century navigators to accurately determine longitude magnetic compass deviations or the effects of the gulf stream it is said by professional navigator douglas peck retraced ponce de leon's route in a sailboat however and found a more likely landing site along this very vicinity just south of melbourne right near here that's the that's the long story short right there but that is why most experts say believe that juan ponce de leon landed right out there somewhere pretty cool huh you never know they say history uh history never changes but it could i don't know guys what do you think do you think pasta de leon landed right out here in melbourne the experts say so but there's a lot of people back in st augustine that have celebrated for years that he landed up there he definitely visited saint augustine definitely but where did he land first help protect our sea turtles please do please do one more time before we hit the road ladies and gentlemen on this beautiful veterans day morning the atlantic ocean right here imagining several spanish ships full of conquistadors out there approaching horizon over 500 years ago that is a long time ago wow so much has changed so much has changed okay now it's a little too early for ice cream but i wanted to stop here along a1a here in melbourne and show you this wacky looking coney island hot dog stand moose ice cream it's utterly delicious oh i just love a good pun but over here there's a giant hot dog on a cart look at this i love this so wacky that thing is probably 12 feet long foot long foot long who's got the 12 foot long and right here on the other end you got a a holstein cow a bull right there a full-size uh full-sized cow that is pretty cool there's some other things going on here we've got much to see right here that moose ice cream moo moo he said move it on over come get some ice cream all the car is passing by each day i'm sure that's what he says oh my lordy i think you can actually milk a cow right here i see the udders in a bucket i don't know i don't know should i do this okay i always learned i did this when i was a kid you start from the top and kind of work your way down oh i'm not doing i'm so milking a cow right now oh okay all right all right oh this is utterly insane oh i got it all right i got you big girl don't worry too bad this place isn't open look there's another cow it looks awesome here and i about broke my neck i thought this sign says portillos like portillos of chicago we have those over in tampa now but it's putrillos in the same fawn it's more of a a pizza place i like pizza i like what they did there that's an attention getter for sure i thought that said portillos all right i'm walking right here past portillo's right over here there's one more thing but i want to point out all of the condos and hotels across the street right over there is the atlantic ocean right here alongside a1a yep oh punch buggy dos amigos style right up here punch buggy green white and red the dos amigos beetle here with this young man and horse right out front of the door with insignia on it check out those dos amigos right there oh and they're actually in the in the punch buggy that's pretty cool and it says uh says florida right there and uh right over here is the restaurant cantina dos amigos california mexican food and also they have cuban sandwiches inside so the number one uh search on my google history is mexican food near me fun fact when i'm on the road i like to get some tex-mex food all the time i love it i don't know why i just when i'm on the road i like tex-mex food too early for it this morning though i would eat it for breakfast though if i could but cool to see the dos amigos punch buggy it's wacky and cool and right on the side of the road i love it okay abandoned pizza hut alert check it out so back in the day when i was a kid you weren't cool unless you had your birthday party at a pizza hut or a discovery zone those two places especially pizza hut was the place to get some pie and celebrate your birthday i know i did a couple times that was fun i'm gonna walk all the way around this is 1170 a1a right here in melbourne i mean i can hear the goal or almost at gulf of mexico i'm so used to that i can almost hear the atlantic ocean over there behind me look it's all grown up in here this place hasn't seen a pie in quite some time even the light fixture look at the salt air how it's corroded it that's how close we are to the coastline i'm gonna look in the window here see if you can see anything oh yeah it looks like a pizza hut just needs some of those uh those hanging stained glass uh light fixtures lamps and a um some video games some table video pac-man and centipede is what my local pizza hut had way back in the uh late eight late 80s early 90s and i believe this is the former entrance right over here watch watch these uh bushes here they're prickly but here's the main door this is where you'd walk in look at that sitting vacant i'm just fascinated by abandoned buildings especially abandoned pizza huts anything pizza related i just love and abandoned also so there you go right here on melbourne beach the old pizza hut i'm sure there's a pizza hut somewhere around here but they went to more of a shopping mall most of the time you see them in a shopping plaza nowadays just to walk up and grab your pie no sit down anymore which i uh i kind of wish we didn't get away from that something nostalgic about going into a pizza hut having your pie with your family all right i'm rambling here about pizza i will do that a time or two again here on this channel oh someone left someone had a party at pizza hut though someone still see someone knows oh man someone knows here's the drive-thru it's a long-winded shot we're going about three minutes here two and a half to three minutes for this abandoned pizza hut but there's some of you out there that want to see every angle of it i'm sure here you go going all the way around this looks like it used to be the refrigerator back here the big ice box at the entrance of the drive-through the pickup window look at all the rust running down the side the back side of it and there you go the ac condenser is still there oh there's the freezer i doubt it's open doubt it's open nope seems like a a good spot to end it i don't think you can see it there it's total black i know the code though it's double 07. all right guys pizza hut this shot's over okay there's still much to see today we've only just begun on the side of peach's pond and jewelry on the edge of the shopping mall this giant mural a shark and a sea turtle just had to show you that it's beautiful artwork isn't it gorgeous situated halfway between melbourne and cocoa is an old florida town called ugali i hope i'm not butchering that that's how i've always said it i'm sure someone will correct me if i'm wrong but classic ace hardware alert right here check it out look at this beautiful piece of architecture this has been an ace hardware for a long time maybe since it was built notice how these awnings come out over the windows that is definitely that's definitely i believe 50s i believe i don't know maybe there's some uh information over here but check it out ugly ace hardware been here for many of years several decades i'm sure and it's a lot bigger from this angle check it out it goes all the way back there and there's a larger warehouse portion i'm sure that was added on but this is an original ace hardware store here in ugali check it out e-a-u-g-a-l-l-i-e [Applause] i hope i'm pronouncing that right i know someone again i know someone will correct me i have it wrong very cool to be standing here in this uh old florida downtown area i love it all right making my way north of highway us highway one the next roadside attraction is right there oh my goodness orange you glad i'm gonna stop here look at that thing whoa i need to wash my windows bella's been licking them well it's kind of a coincidence that we are at some sort of a va of veterans clinic veterans of america it says right there disabled american veterans melbourne florida orange restored by the melbourne rotary club this used to sit outside of a citrus stand somewhere here in florida now it's just sitting beside highway u.s one here south of uh the cocoa area look at this this is so cool there's a door right over here check out the the big leaves up there look at that and here's the door let's see if we can uh we can get in there what feels unlocked let's try it let's try it nope had a feeling maybe we can uh get ourselves in there i i'd say it'd be a a tight squeeze between that crack though all right i'll stop with i'll stop with the buds all right you've heard of james and his giant peach well have you heard of jay and his giant orange if you take a screenshot wait wait if you take a screenshot [Music] it'll last longer all right moving out that was way too much fun wanted to show the building right here as i'm rolling around it and departing shout out to the veterans thanks for your service thank you very much all right i'm now a few feet before highway one it's gonna be kind of loud bear with me but i turned around and came back because i saw this classic motel sign check it out look at that thing it's it's seen better days i can just imagine the neon this sign lit up at night coming down highway one welcome to waterway tv vacancy this is really cool and now over here i believe is the old motel now just houses actually apartments they've turned the hotel people actually live in there i won't show too much of that there's actually a lady standing out there on the porch wondering what i'm doing but i just wanted to show you this awesome rustic retro old florida classic motel sign this thing is awesome it's shifted perhaps from the winds of the hurricane notice it's uh it's not perfect but i love it it's amazing it's perfect to me look at that i wish i could get you it in full frame but i'd have to go stand out there in that busy u.s highway look oh there's an old dodge right there yeah old ram used to have one of those in high school check it out motel all right here we go there's still much ahead and here we are on atlantic avenue passing by the iconic one of a kind the ron john surf shop i remember visiting ron john surf shop for the first time with my family in 1993 although it wasn't this big huge today i've been in there recently yeah a couple years back not going in there today but one day maybe we'll go in there oh i'm glad that someone decorated properly for the season they didn't just jump right into christmas there's a turkey in front of residential and commercial real estate here among bikini road that sign says bikini i just had to point that out bikini road and highway a1a atlantic boulevard gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble although i like christmas i wasn't knocking that i will be celebrating christmas very soon it's cool to see a turkey it's almost turkey time oh yeah oh my bad i need glasses it says bimini i've got for some reason i've got bikini on the mind hey i'm at a beach all right now a little ways up the road here there is a condo back here called ocean pines this former restaurant eatery now is sitting vacant you could say abandoned but it's vacant it's actually for cell it used to be called barrier jacks breakfast lunch and dinner and it's sold right there so maybe another restaurant coming soon but why am i standing here talking about this it's because of what lies beyond beyond the road over here there's a point right here uh this way you're going south i'm sorry north and the other way you're going south it splits and out here on this point there's a statue right there whoa made it 11 time world championship surfer 11 championships robert kelly slater was born right here in cocoa beach actually we're we are just before downtown this this split right here is just before downtown cocoa beach what an honor a hometown hero legendary surfer to have your own statue before your hometown that is pretty rad pretty tubular also a movie star kelly kelly slater was in he's been in several movies and documentaries obviously for surfing the endless summer too one of my favorites when i was a kid i used to watch the endless summer too i still have it on vhs and it was just a if you don't like surfing it's just a cool tour around the world and you see different beaches and and it's just a documentary of them surfing all the way around the world in the summer too and the original is good also but the second one world championship surfer kelly slater right here very awesome statue very tubular look all the way around it at the base i just noticed this the years that he won the surfing world championship honor honoring kelly slater world surfing champion and there's a little plaque here born february 11th [Applause] 1972. robert kelly slater that's pretty awesome pretty rad as they say look at that looks awesome with the sun in the shadow every angle looks pretty cool okay making a right right here i see it here we go i'm gonna park the car and show you right here on the edge of a1a this sign right here says it all can you read it i'm going slow there's another sign hold on i'll park and come back okay i parked my car notice turkey trot 5k thanksgiving day 8 a.m that's probably the last thing i will be doing on thanksgiving day but here it is right here this sign and it's got some age to it i dream of jeannie lane before this park right here off of a1a i dream of genie lane the classic american sitcom one of my favorite rerun shows from when i was a kid i'm not that old but right here is the history of why they named it i dream of jeannie lane that's because cocoa beach was the fictional town where barbara eden uh genie where they lived in the show i dream of jeannie was part of cocoa beach when a television sitcom ran from 1965 to 1970 starring barbara eden as a 2 000 year old female genie and larry hagman tony as an astronaut he worked at nasa which as we know not too far from here cape canaveral the tv series was set in and around cocoa beach barbara eden visited cocoa beach in 1996 when the i dream of genie street sign was placed at lori wilson park and that's where we're standing here at lori wilson park before the entrance in brevard county and barbara eden genie herself stood right before the sign that is that is awesome i always wondered if it was really filmed here i don't think it was it was a a set out in hollywood but very cool that they uh they gave recognition out here and named a street after the classic sitcom i dream of genie i always always enjoyed watching i dream of jeannie on nick and knight and bewitch they were kind of a similar vibe i know some will hate hate me after i say this maybe but i always enjoyed i dream of genie over bewitched i love them both but i always found myself watching barbara eaton i don't yep yep stopped and stopped in to check it out oh oh that is a can i oh that's not a magnet that's a sticker oh that oh man so if you for season pass holders they call us pass holes and this is a mock-up of a gator with a mickey biting biting an arm with a dole whip and he's got his magic band on all right sorry i had to show that that just caught my eye here below the i dream of jeannie lane very cool very cool shark alert shark out of water over there that's wacky i love it and i felt that it would be appropriate to come out here on veterans day to veterans memorial park a brevard county here on merritt island and there's a lot of people out here and a lot of veterans i think this is the trailhead of the veterans day parade that takes place here on merritt island and the pathway is lined with the american flag old glory lines the pathway today for veterans day a couple helicopters over here looks like a cobra and then the huey right over there standing beneath a uh-1h huey assigned 17th cavalry h troop vietnam 1971 assigned to air america incorporated april 1973 used in the final evacuation of saigon april 1975 and two helicopters that actually flew in vietnam this one right here a cobra i believe i almost said apache but i believe that's a cobra that is so cool look at the machine guns on the front and the launchers to the left and to the right there's a couple pilots in there a couple dummies i'm not calling them dummies that's what they are though check it out this is so cool right here it says in honor of those that served in harm's way vietnam laos cambodia and thailand and on the back side in honor of all men and women who served in vietnam together then together again all gave some some game some gave all vietnam 1959 to 1975. and i just want to show you there's some soldiers over there breaking down looks like they're breaking down certain items from the ceremony that was just held out here and shout out to all my friends and family who served in operation during freedom those those were lost some gave some all gave some some gave all nice little memorial here [Music] just silence that's all i have for you right here in this moment and the september 11th memorial i've been to dozens of parks around the united states one coming to mind right now besides ground zero itself is the one out in napa valley and they all have hunks and pieces of the world trade center like this one here and i always like to touch him feel and remember wow just a moment of silence that's all here on veterans day appreciate you guys love you thanks for always joining me thanks for always joining me i don't know what i just said there but yeah it's been a journey that's for sure what a great day what a great morning it's still morning and we've seen so much well guys thank you for joining me if you enjoyed this video do me a favor give it one of those right down there and if it was your first time subscribe below come on back i really enjoy tracking down these attractions and all kinds of wacky things this is some of my favorite content to create just getting in the car driving not knowing what's ahead but knowing there's much ahead if you know what i'm saying i just really love the thrill of exploring and even better you guys joined me thank you so much for joining me love you guys please know you're awesome know you're loved no there's always much ahead here on this channel i'm going to end it really quick but if you'd like to watch more of my videos check them out i got a new playlist a florida roadside attractions an abandoned places playlist i just created made a post about it i think this will be the 42nd video added to that series so if you want to check out more of these types of videos check those out or any of my other types of videos there's other playlists on the main page of my youtube channel if you clicked off of facebook or instagram or whatever just know this is an actual channel and you have to subscribe below to receive a notification for the next video i always like to explain that because a lot of people don't know they just click on random videos and they don't know i didn't know that i didn't know that for the longest time until i found the world of vlogging all right i told you i wasn't gonna go along with it here and i did but thank you so much for joining me again happy veterans day to all those veterans out there thank you so much for your service all right over and out see you later oh i hear a chicken over there you know what i really like to do i'd really like to ride at a huey one day how can i do that that would be awesome oh yeah i'd definitely vlog it definitely take you with me goals

Channel: Tampa Jay

Views: 14,793

Keywords: Florida roadside attractions and abandoned places, Florida Roadside attractions, Abandoned florida, abandoned places, Ponce de Leon landing Melbourne, Where did Ponce de Leon land in florida?, off the beaten path, Florida Highway A1A attractions, Kelly Slater statue Cocoa beach, lesser known florida, wacky florida, Roadside exploration, Explore, tampa jay, vlog, travel, Florida, big orange florida, I dream of genie lane, Ponce de Leon landing, Veterans Day 2021

Id: NJCU4SH4FEE

Length: 31min 24sec (1884 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 11 2021