Zephyrhills Travel Guide

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A train used to go through Zephyrhills right along South Avenue. All that there is left now is the depot, a hundred feet of track and a few railroad cars. So being the rail buffs that we are we just had to stop and see.

Inside the museum depot there are exhibits of train artifacts from the high point of the local train era. There is a mini-train set that operates (little transformers for kids to play with and switches to change lights). A diorama shows the extent of the regions train usage. There is a small gift shop. And a back room with memoribilia about Zephyrhills' important citizens.

There is another office which was closed the day that we went, which houses the genealogy information for Dade County. So if you have some ancestry here, that office could help you.

Outside there was a real rail car that you could enter and investigate. There was one other car that they had off limits (not sure why).

Address:Skydive City Inc. 4241 Skydive Lane, Zephyrhills, Florida 33540.
Telephone: 1-800-404-9399 (813) 783-9399 Fax: 1-813-782-0599
How to get here!

Be nice to your instructor, DON'T EAT BEFORE JUMP,
Least then two hours or make it three. So you will not throw up all over your instructor.

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At the Palm Harbor Homes factory for building mobile homes we got the factory tour.
They sit you down as a group with a company representative and you fill out a form that basically wants to find out if you are interested in buying a home. (If you answer "yes, I am interested" then you will be spotlighted by the representative during the tour). Then you get to view a 15 minute video on the mobile home process and how good these homes are (they do have free popcorn.... really). Then you walk through the manufacturing plant and see all the steps used to put together the parts that become prefab walls and fixtures. They have about 20 people working on different phases and items of each prefab section.
Then the tour goes to an overhead balcony where you see the prefab sections being joined into the final product. The tour is about an hour and (I thought) very interesting.

location is: 605 South Frontage Road, Plant City, FL (Plant City is an industrial suburb 10 miles south of Zephyrhills at junction of route 39 and I-4)

Favorite thing: "Tandem jumping has been around for 18-20 years now. It is about the EASIEST way to get into skydiving. After about 30 minutes of training, you will climb into our turbine aircraft for about a 20 minute ride to altitude.
From 13500' (4150m), wearing a harness that is connected to the Tandem Master, you will jump and accelerate to 120MPH (200Kph) and freefall for about 60 seconds. At about 5000', we will open the parachute, get you settled in the harness, and then you can assist us in steering the parachute during the 5-7 minute ride down. During that time you will get to practice the landing, have yourself a great roller coaster ride (if you like that), and then land on the dropzone with your video person waiting to film it all. "
[from SkydiveCity.com]
Skydive City Inc. 4241 Skydive Lane, Zephyrhills, Florida 33542.
Telephone: 1-800-404-9399 Fax: 1-813-782-0599