Olde Floridae

Explore Florida long enough and there’s a chance you’ll discover something no one else has. This happened to Genevieve and me awhile back when we headed to the Black Point Wildlife Drive in Merritt Island to do a little bird-watching. (Note: We drove through Titusville to get there, which made my lady giggle with delight. See, she insists that you should pronounce the town’s name with a short i sound. Go ahead, try it. Hee hee! She’s such a card.)

No, we didn’t spot a new species of fowl or a Florida panther. What we did see, and couldn’t understand why others had never noticed, was an ancient Chinese pagoda just a short walk from the halfway point of the drive through the preserve. I mean, IT’S RIGHT THERE! Just this huge 3,500-year-old wooden structure rising 15, 20 feet above the surrounding acres of mangrove. How do we know we discovered it? Because there’s nothing on the internet about it. Go ahead, check. Not a word about an ancient Chinese pagoda at Black Point. That’s all the proof we needed that Genevieve and I are the first to lay eyes on it.

Not content with just looking at this miraculous find, we ventured the 150 or so meters down the path from the preserve’s pristine restrooms (looks up pristine … no, that’s not the word – more like nightmarish) to see this remarkable building up close. We could not believe what we saw! For starters, it was in amazing shape for being so old. It looked to be made of pressure-treated lumber, but we know that’s not the case because that wasn’t a thing 3,500 years ago. They just had regular wood. Then we noticed how it was held together: The support beams and posts were actually bolted to each other, and the surface planks were screwed down! Who knew ancient peoples had knowledge of such building principles?

We simply had to climb the steps and check out the view. When we reached the top, we were awestruck by what we saw. Plants! Water! So much stuff. When we looked over the side down into the mangrove, we also saw plastic bottles that we theorized once carried water for the workers who built the pagoda. Perhaps the most staggering find at the top was this thing that resembled binoculars you’d drop a coin into so you could see great distances for like two minutes. What amazing forethought by such an ancient culture!

Genevieve and I spent a good 30 minutes up there looking around, all the while feeling a kinship with those who boldly erected this magnificent structure that has stood the test of time. Being the first ones to discover the pagoda, we also felt quite high and mighty and way better than other people who had visited Black Point over the years but somehow couldn’t see it. To celebrate our contempt for others and remember our beautiful day, we stopped at a nearby CVS to buy T-shirts. Mine says “Titusville,” which makes my Genevieve squeal with joy every time I wear it. Rock on!