As a native Floridian, I've been to a handful of sites discussed in this book, like Silver Springs and Weeki Wachee. My mother loved to tell me about how she and my grandparents would go there decades ago, and how the area has changed so much since then. This book nicely illustrates this, giving tons of historical photos, with some modern shots for comparison. I must admit though, that this isn't the reason why I got this book.

There is a VFW post in Fort McCoy, Florida, that has an authentic G-26 Missile on display. This is the only example of this type of missile, part of the Navaho missile, that exists in the world, outside of Cape Canaveral. As a Navaho enthusiast, I am deeply curious to know how the missile came to be at the VFW. Nobody there could tell me much beyond the fact that it was once in a museum. Further research identified the museum as the Early American Museum, which is featured in this book. I was delighted to find a couple of photos of the missile on display at the museum (even though it NEVER would have been painted like that in real life). The author seemed to think the missile wasn't real. He kept referring to it as a "replica" of a rocket ship. Okay, I have a problem with the term "rocket ship" on principle. This is a missile with a nuclear payload, not a prop from Flash Gordon.

I had hoped there would be more information on this artifact, but there was't probably because the author thought it was fake. No sir, it is real, and it has a real history. I hope that one day I'll find out how it escaped scrapping and wound up in central Florida.

If you are interested in Silver Springs and related sites in Central Florida, this will probably be very interesting to you. A nice nostalgia trip for people who actually visited these places back in the day. ( )