​Viva la long weekend! Except if you don't start making plans soon, you'll probably spend the next four days watching a Saved by the Bell marathon with a straw stuck in your Jimmy Buffet brand margarita machine. But planning a weekend trip from Miami ain't easy. We're surrounded by water on three sides and have strange country-fried neighbors to the north (i.e., the entire state north of West Palm).

Plus, mid-west folks plan their Key West excursions years in advance, thwarting spontaneous trips by locals who are within a four-hour drive. So what to do? You camp. You find the curious and the weird off the beaten track. Check the cut for five years worth of Best Weekend Trip winners from our Best of Miami issues. And please, tell us your ultimate weekend getaway in the comments section.More >>

via baysidekeylargo.com

​Do you need an escape from Miami but don't want to travel far? Drive down to John Pennekamp in Key Largo and snorkel out to Jesus. That's right, we said Jesus! The 10-foot statue of Jesus was made by Italian artist/professor Guido Galletti. But before you dive in, here are a few things you need to remember:

1. Make sure you can swim. Jesus could walk on water and look what that got him.
2. If it makes you feel better, instead of referring to him as "Christ of the Deep", try "Hipster of the Sea" or "Sea Hippie."
3. Jellyfish don't actually chase you, they float. Avoiding them is easy.
4. Sharks actually will chase you, so don't wear that new Lady Gaga inspired dive suit made of raw meat.
5. The experience can reduce a grown man to tears. Ear drums are sensitive and water pressure is no joke.
6. New pick-up line-- "Jesus is my dive partner" --will make panties drop in Utah.
   

Check out this adorable little video of swimming with Jesus in Key Largo. It will probably make you vomit from its cuteness:More >>

Feeling restless this summer? Y​ou don't have to travel half-way around the globe to witness something awesome. Just take a drive in the 305. Coral Castle in Homestead is just creepy, weird, and wonderful enough to lure in both locals and tourists.

Like the Taj Mahal, the Castle is a monument to a woman. Edward Leedskalnin built it in 1923 as an homage to his long lost love, Agnes Scuffs. The woman who he called his "Sweet Sixteen" left him the day before they were to get married. Leedskalnin then devoted 28 years of his life building this coral rock monument for Agnes. The freaky thing is that this five-foot-tall man sculpted and moved over a thousand tons of this rock all by himself. His superhuman feat fueled on love and heartbreak inspired Billy Idol to write "Sweet Sixteen" about Ed and Agnes. The rock star then filmed the music video in Coral Castle (video after the jump). More >>

Photos by Roy Anderson

​In Analyze This,  Paul Vitti (Robert De Niro) is telling therapist Dr. Ben Sobel (Billy Crystal) about his inability to maintain an erection. They're sitting at an empty bar, and behind the top-shelf liquor, "mermaids" seductively tease the two men with pouty f-me faces and sensual underwater acrobatics. But behind that veil of underwater eroticism, there's a glimpse into Florida history: the aquatic spectacle.

In the '50s and '60s, Florida was full of dive shows and underwater theaters, which tiptoed a fine line between kitschy roadside tourist trap and extraordinary performance art.

"I call it aquatic performance, or water ballet," says Marina Anderson, a long-time practitioner of underwater theater, and star of the Wreck Bar at the Sheraton Fort Lauderdale's weekly mermaid show.More >>

thestuffedpig.com

Running for their lives?

​Remember some years back when it was cool to own pot bellied pigs as pets? Those porkers were pretty damn cute. But eventually you sat down for a meal and looked at your plate of bacon, ham, or pork chops, then down at old "Wilbur" and realized something was inherently wrong. Or, you thought nothing of it and still have a pig running around your living room.

For those of you who seen nothing wrong with keeping an animal as a pet and eating his brother or sister, or, gasp, children, boy have we got a treat for you. The National Pig Days Celebration starts tonight in Marathon. There's a bunch activities scheduled with equal parts dedicated to having fun with the snorters and eating their ribs with barbecue sauce.More >>

Courtesy Matlacha Mariners

Everyone gets in on the mullet tossing in Matlacha.

​It's easy to forget Miami and South Florida are actually part of the rest of Florida most of the time. We might fancy ourselves cosmopolitan, but invariably we are humbled by the realization that we are closer to the "South" than we are comfortable admitting. That point is unmistakably driven home this weekend with the 20th annual Mullet Tossing Competition in Matlacha, just north of Cape Coral about 165 miles away from Miami--less than a three hour drive to the west coast.

Much like the mullet haircuts that dot much of our state, mullet tossing is a combination of serious business and partying. Okay, so it's mostly about the partying. Believe it or not, we have a Q&A with one of the organizers of the event, Jerry Tolliver, of the Matlacha Mariners Association. Read on to learn everything you never wanted to know about mullet tossing.
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Photos by Josh Abril

​What can you get for $10 at the Swap Shop? In past years, we've haggled over knickknacks from animals to construction equipment to a handgun. We bought a fat-tailed gecko from a toothless woman who had, amongst other animals, prairie dogs and baby alligators. On another occasion, we held our price over a video cassette player until the man we were bargaining with finally turned to his friend and said, "Hell, it ain't mine anyway."

With enough time and money, we've always maintained that one could go there and find anything from a nuclear warhead to a human kidney. Seeing as we hadn't been to the Swap Shop in almost a decade, we wanted to see what the coolest thing we could now buy for a mere $10.More >>

John Athanason

Weeki Wachee Springs State Park's Mermaid Stayce McConnell

​El Jefe doesn't give Cultist much time off, but when he does, we like to spend our hard-earned blog money road tripping through Florida, stopping at quirky roadside attractions and buying-up neat little souvenir-stand knickknacks along the way. So much so, we decided to start our own mini-travel series, "Worth the Drive."

From Everglade skunk apes to underwater theaters, Jesus Christ lookalikes to alligator farms, Cultist is determined to highlight some of the wackiest joints in Florida and the eccentric folks behind them. For this installment, we talk to a mermaid about life at Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, Florida's favorite underwater tourist trap. More >>

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