Seacrest Scrub Natural Area

 I've passed the signs for Seacrest Scrub Natural Area on my way to church, and I finally decided to stop and take a look around. This park is located on Seacrest Boulevard in Boynton Beach. I didn't expect to find a 54-acre wilderness preservation area in the middle of a neighborhood near a growing business district. It was a very nice surprise. Once you start out on the trail, you can forget that you're even near civilization.

Although I didn't spot any of the gopher tortoises that the natural area is home to, I was able to enjoy the wonderful variety of native Florida plants that grow here. According to the pamphlet at the vistor's welcome board, "Many of the plants recorded at Seacrest Scrub are endemic to the Florida scrub ecosystem – they are found nowhere else. Endangered or threatened plants include large-flowered rosemary, pinweed, and giant wild pine."

This is definitely a place worth visiting again - when I have on shoes better suited to walking.

Driftwood Resort

 

I spent the weekend at a friend's timeshare at the Driftwood Resort in Vero Beach. She is such a generous soul, and naturally we all had a wonderful time. There were three of us invited, plus my friend and her granddaughter. We spent the afternoon hanging out at the pool. After dinner, we played several games of mahjong before calling it a night and crawling into bed/couch/chair. Despite the late night, we were up in the morning to see the sunrise on the beach. Beautiful!

The Driftwood is a wonderfully historic landmark in Vero Beach and if you ever get the chance to visit there, you should. While management continues to modernize it as the need arises, they've kept as much of the original structure and charm as possible. 

If you have time to sight see (we didn't, since we were too busy having fun together), there are lots of specialty shops, including a homemade ice cream shop, just across the street. Saturday mornings there is a Farmer's Market within walking distance. Vero Beach also boasts of the McKee Botanical Garden, which is on my "next visit" list. For those of us with a fiberish mind, be sure to stop in and visit The Knitty Gritty on Dixie Highway. (I've been told by those who would know that it is worth a day trip all by itself.) 

Everglades Holiday Park

My Aunt came down to Florida for a visit recently, and one of the things she had her heart set on doing was to go see the Gator Boys in the Everglades. She is a big fan of the show on Animal Planet. So my mom, my aunt, and I drove to Fort Lauderdale for a visit to Everglades Holiday Park. Naturally, the gator show was our first stop.

My Aunt was thrilled to meet Big Mike from the show. Mike admitted to to having a law degree, which is not a prerequisite to getting into the pit with the gators. I didn't ask what the prerequisites really are. As much as I would like to see my son  find an exciting career, I am very glad he has never expressed the desire to become a gator wrestler.

While at the park, we also took a ride on one of the air boats. I had expected one of the exciting, open-air, noisy boats that we've ridden before. This was a very comfortable cabin-type air boat. Our guide was terrific, and the scenery was amazing!

I have to admit that once again, Aunt Robin was right. The Gator Boy's Holiday Park in the Everglades was worth the trip.

Brooklyn Botanical Gardens

 

Since I mentioned the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens yesterday, I thought I would share a few more of the photos that I took on my visit in April.  My daughter was very proud of the gardens, and justifiably so. I tend to think of New York as busy sidewalks and tall buildings, or underground subways filled with interesting people. I don't expect extensive gardens that rival the gardens down here in tropical Florida. 

 The 52-acre botanical garden is just a few blocks away from my daughter's apartment (lucky girl!) near Prospect Park. It was founded in 1910, so it's been around for a long time.

 My favorite garden was the tulip beds. When I lived in Kentucky, I planted ever-so-many tulip bulbs in my yard. (I'm tempted to say hundreds of bulbs, but that would be an exaggeration. It only seemed like hundreds because I'm not really a big fan of gardening -- I just liked the tulips!)

The pussy willow plants in the Japanese garden also brought back a lot of memories for me. As a child, pussy willows always meant spring. I remember my mom having vases filled with the fuzzy blossoms throughout the house.

 And of course, we saw the cherry blossoms in bloom. Every year Brooklyn Botanical Gardens has a Cherry Blossom Festival. Maybe next year I can time my visit in order to attend with my daughter.

 Even if I don't make the Festival, I know that the Gardens will be on my list of places I have to visit again.

Saturday Snapshot

One of the cherry blossom trees in bloom

 at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden,

 taken during my trip to NYC in April.

Riverbend Park

  

Riverbend Park is located on Indiantown Road in Jupiter, Florida, just west of I-95 and the turnpike. It's easy to get to, has great parking, and miles of trails and waterways to explore. It's such a wonderful park, it's amazing that it is still uncrowded and peaceful. Mom and I found our way to the park almost by accident the first time. We had intended to meet up to knit and chat at another park but found that it was so crowded the police had literally closed the entrance to anyone else. I remembered having gone to Riverbend a few years ago, and we decided to check it out. On an impulse we rented bikes (only $10 for the day), and a new obsession was born.

Since that first trip, I've made it back to Riverbend Park almost every weekend where mom and I spend hours exploring the 15 miles of trails. We've seen deer, raccoon, owls, peacocks, woodpeckers, and many other birds and animals on our adventures. We've gotten better at avoiding trees, lakes, and other so-called-stationary obstacles. Both of us have our own bikes now, and we both continue to carry our knitting in the baskets although we have yet to actually stop and knit at the park. We haven't gone kayaking down the river yet, but you can bet that it's on our To Do list.

 

Butterfly World

 One of my favorite places to visit is the Butterfly World in Coconut Creek. I don't go very often, because  (1) it's a little expense and (2) it's a long ride to get there. But this weekend they were giving free admission to all mothers, so mom and I decided to go. I was surprised at how close it was to my new apartment. It was only about a half-hour drive, which really isn't bad at all. I'm thinking of investing in the annual membership, which would make it a very reasonable weekend, or even afternoon, activity.

 Needless to say, mom and I had a great time. I took over 100 pictures (I love digital cameras!), including a great one of my mom looking at the butterfly on her shoulder. A couple of the pictures are going to be framed for my wall. And most of the rest will become note cards.

I finally saw the Castle!

After years of talking about it, I finally made it to the Coral Castle. It was even one of the things that had been on my 50 by 50 list. I'm so glad my daughter agreed to go with me. It was fantastic.

When we first pulled into the parking lot, I was a little leery. We had driven an hour and a half to get there, and the place looked way too small and somewhat shabby to be worth a three hour round trip. Especially since there was a $15 entry fee. Per person. But I've been wanting to see it for so long, and we had driven so far to get there, we decided to go on in.

Wow. The first sign that you see, says it all. In my opinion, it also sums up the personality of Ed Leedskalnin. Ed designed and did all the work for the Coral Castle back in the 1940s. Ed was a tiny man, only about 5' tall and 100 lbs, and yet he managed to carve out and move literally thousands of pounds of rock with only the machinery he built himself.

Seeing Rock Gate Park (Ed's original name for his sculpture garden) would have been wonderful on it's own, just for the beauty. But we were lucky to be taken around by an amazing guide. She knew her history, both of the Coral Castle and the world in general, and she was able to pull references from mythology, ancient and current religions, history, literature, and even the Free Masons as she discussed the various elements. She presented a lot of theories on how and why Ed created the Castle, and while I don't go along with the majority I thought it was very interesting. (It reminded me of literature classes - I'm still convinced that most authors would be surprised by the symbolism and themes that they are attributed with.) We really weren't ready for her tour to end, and were amazed to find out that we had been there over two hours without realizing the passage of time. It was that good!

One happy surprise was learning that Florida residents get a free pass to come back as often as they want for two years. I can't wait to go back!

The original ten-cents admission is a far cry from the $15 it costs today. But that was a lot of money in the depression, so Ed would barter with families, taking food that he would then turn around and sell as concessions. Smart man!

 

 Ed lived in a tiny one-room house above his rock garden, without any electricity or running water.

A view of the Coral Castle grounds.

This is one of the reading chairs. Ed carved three, placing them where he could get the best light following the sun's path in the morning, mid-day, and afternoon .

Cari, looking through the rock telescope.

The telescope lines up perfectly to see the north star.

Cari and our guide move the back gate. This weighed something like 5,000 lbs (I forget the exact weight), but because Ed worked out a pivot system it can still be moved today by a couple of girls. Ed had no formal education, so how he was able to design and build this is still unexplained. Although there are a lot of fantastic theories.

Always look on the bright side of life. (Monty Python)

Last night my mom and I drove to Daytona Beach. Mom was attending a tax seminar, and didn't want to travel alone. Naturally I jumped at the chance to take a trip away somewhere, even if it was just a quick one-day event.

We left mom's house right after she got off work. (I get off work earlier than she does, so I was already waiting for her when she got home.) After 2 1/2 hours of driving, without ever running out of topics to talk about, we checked into the timeshare around 9:30 pm. We had a quick dinner, then a late night session of knitting before realizing that we needed to be up early. Oops.


We still managed to wake up in time to enjoy a cup of coffee as we watched the sunrise from our balcony.

Mom went off to her seminar, and I had the entire day in front of me. I spent the morning on the beach. I walked until I was tired, knitted until I got bored, then walked a little more.

I spent the afternoon exploring the historic Beach Street Riverfront Marketplace. Of course, I had an ulterior motive:

YARN
(She Sells Yarn)

and CHOCOLATE

(I recommend taking the factory tour and tasting the chocolate-covered potato chips!)

Mom took me out to dinner before we left for home as an apology for making me sit around bored all day, just so that I could drive her there and back. I hope I get the chance to be bored sitting on Daytona Beach again real soon!

distaff (noun): 1. A staff for holding flax, wool, etc. for spinning. 2. Women considered collectively

I had gotten a notice through my Fiber-In group that the Orlando knitting groups were celebrating Distaff Day with a big get-together. Naturally I wanted to be there, and luckily I was able to talk my friends Lisa and Peggy to ride up with me. We had a wonderful time!


There were about 30 knitters/spinners/weavers attending the day, which was held in the student union at the University of Central Florida. (This is a beautiful campus, by the way. Although I was surprised to see a Game Stop next to the university bookstore.) We socialized, played games, showed off our finished work, and in between actually worked on our fiber projects.

There was a table of freebies; people put out items that they didn't want anymore and you could just take what you wanted. I came home with a booklet of washcloth patterns, a copy of Piecework magazine that I had wanted but couldn't find a copy of, and scraps of sock yarn for my blanket. (I have enough to make mini-balls to share at knit-night.)


There was also a table of items for sale. I bought a shawl pin (I forgot to take a picture), some sock yarn (of course), and some fiber (again, of course).

I know I had said that I wasn't going to add to my stash, but you should have known better than to believe that malarky. Besides, everyone knows that sock yarn doesn't count as stash. And fiber isn't even yarn yet, so how could it possibly count?

We did a yankee swap, and I walked away with a copy of Knitwear Design Workshop. This is a book I've been wanting, so I really made out well.

Oh, and did I mention that I met a whole bunch of sock knitters? It's nice to be around people who love socks as much as I do. (Although I was the only one who likes Special K cereal. Go figure...)
Everyone started packing up to leave around 3:30. Lisa, Peggy, and I decided that since there was still daylight left, we would go hunt out a yarn shop. Several people recommended Sip & Knit, so off we went.
It was another brilliant idea on our part, because the store was great. Three rooms of yarn to explore. There were some favorites (Noro, Cascade) but there was also a lot that I hadn't seen before. Lisa and Peggy showed considerable restraint and managed to ohh and ahh without opening their wallets. I wasn't so well-behaved. But at least I have a souvenir. Besides, sock yarn doesn't count as stash. (Sigh. How many times do I have to repeat that before it sounds believable?)
Altogether we drove over 360 miles, leaving at 6 am and not returning home until after 9 pm. Just to spend the day knitting and spinning and friends.

So, who's ready for another road trip?