Rainbow Springs State Park

Today we finally got out for a day trip.  Once you are in The Villages, it is easy to forget there is a whole other world out there because you have everything you need right here.  There is so much in this area that is unique and beautiful so I'm glad we remembered it for today at least.  Rich and Donna graciously babysat Ava, so after dropping her off we headed to Dunnellon to visit Rainbow Springs State Park.

The first thing we noticed was the fact that the place was packed.  The second was the reality that almost every person except us was wearing a swimming suit, which meant the springs were a great place to swim.  Neither of those things especially surprised us.  What did surprise us was how gorgeous the place was.  We love most Florida parks, but this one was especially pretty in terms of the water.  The water was crystal clear and fairly warm temperature wise.  And it was breathtakingly beautiful.

Rainbow Springs is the fourth largest spring in Florida.  The springs and park used to be a privately owned attraction.  Based on how popular it seemed to be today, I am guessing it did well for many years.  Before the magical mouse took up residence in Florida, I am guessing places like this did very well.  It was nice to see families enjoying it and soaking up the fun still today.  I am happy to say, we did not see one child using an electronic device the entire time we were here which says a lot for the place!

Since we did not bring our swimsuits, we headed off to see what the nature trails were like.  We were very pleased with what we found there also.

Even with it being very hot and humid, we really enjoyed our nature walk.  It was very relaxing and peaceful.  There used to be a little zoo here but that is no longer in operation.  There was a nice butterfly garden that was full of beautiful butterflies.  We watched two that seemed to be doing synchronized flying together.  And beyond a group of kids throwing rocks down at the waterfall we were looking at and almost hitting us, the crowds were not overwhelming in the least.  We gave this place two thumbs up for sure.

So glad we did venture out today and see one of Florida's natural gifts.  Living the life in HOT and HUMID Florida!

United States Astronaut Hall of Fame

Day two we visited the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame.  This place was very touching to me.  It is a strange thing to visit a place that has such significance in our history and know that I was alive during part of it, yet too young to really remember it.  It was a really neat place that we enjoyed a lot.

From Wikipedia: The United States Astronaut Hall of Fame, located just south of Titusville, Florida, honors American astronauts and features the world's largest collection of their personal memorabilia, focusing on those astronauts who have been inducted into the Hall; as well as Sigma 7, the fifth manned Mercury spacecraft. It is operated as part of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, 6 miles (9.7 km) to the east on Merritt Island.

 

After spending time here, we headed out for dinner and ate at the same place that Rich and Donna introduced us to.  Nathan had the giant calzone again.

We headed back to our hotel, and tried to get a good night's sleep so we'd be fresh for our cruise.

Fort DeSoto Park

Sometimes we visit a place that is nearby, and I find myself thinking I can't believe we have never been here before.  This park was one of those places.  We knew it was in the area, and we even tried to find it one day when we were with our travel buddies but we never actually made it to the park.

I am glad we finally did because it was one of the more awesome state parks we have visited in Florida.  The park sits on an island, which is always a cool bonus.  That means there is a beach, pier and park facilities like kayaking and biking.  There is also the fort, which you can walk through.

  Fort De Soto has the only four 12-inch seacoast rifled mortars (model 1890 mounted on 1896 carriages) in the continental United States. Also at the fort are two 6-inch Armstrong rapid-fire rifled guns (model 1898) which were originally mounted at Fort Dade, and are the last two guns of that model year in the United States.

 The walls on the fort were incredibly thick, meaning the inside was unusually cool.  I can't imagine how dark and lifeless it would have seemed though, to stay inside for any length of time.

 

I'll be honest, my favorite part was watching Nathan explore the fort.  He goes into complete guy mode in places like this.

He was trying to find evidence of firing, so I looked it up.  "Ironically, Fort De Soto was never the site of any major battle, and the weapons of Fort De Soto and Fort Dade were never fired in anger at an enemy. However, it played a significant part in the evolution of modern weaponry. In 1977 Fort De Soto was added to the National Register of Historic Places.  Very interesting place to visit!

 

Pinewood Estate

When I visited here last time, we did not go to see the house that is at Bok Tower Gardens.  The house is named the Pinewood Estate and you can do a tour of this neat place.  It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

A tour through the magnificent Mediterranean-style Pinewood Estate lets you experience the luxurious lifestyle of C. Austin Buck, an early 20th century industrialist.  Mr. Buck was the vice president of Bethlehem Steel.  The Estate occupies eight acres of Bok Tower Gardens and is enjoyed by thousands of visitors each year.

 Pinewood Estate’s has beautiful gardens and a 20 room Mediterranean-style mansion built in the early 1930s.  It is considered one of the finest examples of Mediterranean-style architecture in Florida.

 Pinewood began its life in 1930 under the name “El Retiro”.  Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., who came to the area in 1922 to design Edward W. Bok’s Gardens, was designing private gardens at nearby Mountain Lake Estates. William Lyman Phillips was assigned as the Olmsted representative and was retained by Buck to design the gardens and site of “El Retiro” to take maximum advantage of the lush Florida landscape.

 Charles Wait, long affiliated with the Olmsted firm, was brought in to design the house in the Mediterranean-style Floridians still enjoy today. Wait created a house that had the appearance of a Mediterranean villa. The thick walls, wrought iron details, carved woodwork and doors heighten the effect. Wait also incorporated large porches to give clear views of the surroundings and provide constant air flow.

 Buck, who admired Latin lifestyle and architecture, obtained the tiles used throughout the house from Cuba. Phillips, who spent time in the Canal Zone and had a great love for the tropics, set about creating a series of vistas – a Spanish frog fountain leading to a grotto in front of the house; an Oriental moon gate outside the dining room; and the long view down a rolling lawn to the lily pool. The entire house was situated to give views through the surrounding pine trees.

 Over the years, Pinewood changed hands several times before it was acquired by Bok Tower Gardens in 1970. The estate was restored to its original design by nationally recognized restoration landscape architect Rudy Favretti, the staff of Bok Tower Gardens and a corps of volunteers. Today, work continues to preserve the mansion listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

More About our Bok Tower Gardens Trip

As I said, this was Nathan's first trip to see Bok Tower.  It was really overcast and looking like rain, so there wasn't a big crowd there.  Which made it a nice day to visit.

As soon as you enter the front of the visitor center, you can see that this is going to be a pretty place.

Clearly this was a personal goal of Mr. Bok, as is shown in the quote over the entrance.

I think he definitely achieved it with this place.

The main attraction is still the tower, with the beautiful carillon music coming from it each day.

Date Night and Day

We have tried to keep up on our date night since arriving here.  What we have not enjoyed in many months is a day off together.  I work every weekend and Nathan works during the week.  Patti that I work with worked for Donna today.  So she told me to take the day off and she covered for me too.  We were so tickled pink to have a date night and a date day.

Last night we went to Abuelo's in Lakeland.  We then went to the movie, The Vow, which was very touching.

We spent time in a bookstore after that where Nathan and I ventured off to different sections.  When I went to find him, I found him in this section:

We arrived home very late to a frantic girl that is not used to being home alone that long.  She paid us back by waking us up bright and early this morning.

That's ok because we had more fun scheduled for today. We ate a great breakfast in bed, hung out trying to figure out how to get audio books from Box.net to our phones.  Then we headed out to Lake Wales.  We stopped at a BBQ place for lunch.

They were really busy and told us they only had a half booth available.  We said no problem and they said we would get dessert for free if we ate there.  I was very excited to hear that.  This is a half booth, and this is our free dessert.

Nathan ate his share of the huge 1/4 of a pie dessert and then ventured over into my territory and helped himself until I threatened to stab him with my fork.  Everything we ate here was excellent.

After that we were off to Bok Towers.  Diana and I took the kids to visit this neat place before, but Nathan had never visited before today.  He really enjoyed it.  All of the pictures here are from my phone, but I'll try to edit and add more pictures from the big camera this week.

When we arrived home, we saw Rich outside so we went over to see how their pickleball tournament went.  We ended up sitting and having a nice time chatting with he and Donna and trying something I really enjoyed.  I told Nathan to put it on the grocery list and I'll share more about that later.

It was a great day and it was so nice to have a whole day together!

Living the life in Florida!

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Take Two

Although Nathan and I have been to this lighthouse already, we were thrilled to visit again with Barb and John because it was so smoky during our last visit.  I'm so glad we did because the view was fabulous from the top.

 

I have already shared much information about this historic lighthouse in my last post, but just one reminder that there are 248 steps to get to the top.  

 

It takes some time to get there!

The climb is worth it though because the view is amazing!

 

This time we were able to visit the museum and we even caught the movie about when the lighthouse was moved from its former location to the current one.  The movie was much more interesting than I thought it would be.  If you visit, I highly recommend it.  It is incredible to hear and see all that was involved in moving this beautiful piece of the OBX's history.

 

We had a great time here, and saw that each time we come back, we will learn more things about this interesting place.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

This past weekend we went to see another lighthouse.  This one was the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.  It is the tallest lighthouse in America and the tallest brick lighthouse in the world. 

The automated beacon of light from the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is visible every seven seconds. Over 1 million bricks, baked in kilns along the James River in Virginia, were used during construction between 1868 and 1870.

It is believed that the engineer who was originally assigned to paint North Carolina's lighthouses got his plans mixed up. Apparently, the diamond-shaped figures, which were supposed to warn traffic away from Diamond Shoals, went to Cape Lookout. The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse received spiral striping, thus obtaining the nickname ''The Big Barber Pole.''

We enjoyed the visit very much.  We did not grab that many pictures though because of the smoke that was in the air today.  There is a fire on the mainland and the smoke was courtesy of that.

Shipwrecks: The George A Kohler

There is such interesting marine history here, including the large number of shipwrecks that have happened in the waters here.  We hope to explore much of this history while we are here.  Ruth, a new friend that I work with, told me about one very close by.  So last night we hiked to the location at low tide so we could see it up close and personal.

I sent my model out to stand in front of it to show how close to the shore it is.  And right when I got to snap the picture this woman goes and stand directly in front of him/the ship blocking my shot.  So I wait.  And she just stands there.  I wait.  She stands and stares at me like maybe I'm a long lost friend or something.

I lift my camera and she turns around and then it hits her.  Oh...sorry.  No problem.  She scoots over about half an inch, still blocking my shot.  Alrighty then, we'll just move.  People crack me up sometimes.

This ship is the George A. Kohler, which was a schooner that was grounded in a 1933 hurricane. This ship sat on the beach for ten years before it was burned for her iron fittings during World War II. The remains of this shipwreck has report to be seen both in the surf and on the sand.

 And one shot of the gorgeous, bathed in setting sun beach.  Notice how empty it is right now!

Living the life in beach paradise!