Christmas 2009

I went to Orlando for Christmas this year as I always do, but this year I drove and stayed longer. While I was there I also visited Fort Lauderdale to see some friends. Besides just hanging out a lot, I did a couple of things that I would like to blog about.

On my way back from Fort Lauderdale to Orlando, I decided to forgo the turnpike and take back roads through the Everglades and past Lake Okeechobee. I stopped about 20 miles west of Fort Lauderdale at the Sawgrass Recreation Park on US Hwy 27. The park is situated in the northeast corner of the vast Everglades and has both a boat launch and a small zoo. I took an air boat ride first. I have always wanted to go on one but until then had never even been to the Everglades despite having grown up in Florida. The boat took us out for about a half an hour over the sawgrass swamp where we saw a couple of alligators and some birds. The Everglades used to be a giant 60 foot wide slow moving waterway that went from Lake Okeechobee down to Florida Bay at the end of the state. But because of all the levies, canals, and roads that have been built over them, most of the glades are now a non-moving marsh. Such was the condition of the swamp we were seeing. We also stopped at an island where some Malaluca trees had been planted and an Osprey was resting on one. These foreign trees were at one time planted all over the everglades in the hope that they would drink up the water and help convert the land to farmland. The trees reproduced like crazy and now the state is trying all kinds of methods to try and kill them. After the boat ride, I walked around the small zoo and saw more alligators and a Florida Panther, the state animal. I also read a display about efforts to "restore" the Everglades, which basically involve more dams, canals, and pumping stations to try to recreate the natural flow. I'll believe it when I see it. You can read more about Sawgrass Recreation Park at their website: http://www.evergladestours.com.

After my air boat adventure, I headed north on Hwy 27 toward Lake Okeechobee. On my way there I passed more swamp which eventually gave way to sugarcane fields as far as I could see in both directions. Eventually I did pass other farms including several palm tree farms where several varieties were being grown to be used later for landscaping. At the southeast corner of the lake, I passed through the town of Belle Glade. Although it is in Palm Beach county, it must be one of the poorest cities in the state. It was certainly the poorest place in Florida that I remember visiting. I took a wrong turn at one point and ended up going through downtown and then through a neighborhood that reminded me of some of the poverty I have seen in Honduras. You know things are bad when the main store downtown is the Goodwill. Apparently most of the economy comes from people working on the sugarcane fields. God bless them. In Pahokee, I drove up on the levy surrounding the lake and walked around the marina. Lake Okeechobee is the second largest lake in the US that is entirely within the US. It is so large that I could not see across it. As I continued on and drove around it, I did not see much more of the lake as it is surrounded by a high levy to prevent flooding during hurricanes. While it serves its purpose it has damaged the Everglades ecosystem south of it, which depended on it flooding. So I drove north with the levy on my left and passed numerous Sabal Palms (the state tree) and Live Oaks and fishing camps and felt like I was in the "real" Florida.

On the Monday after Christmas, my parents and I went to Lake Wales to see Bok Tower and its surrounding gardens, about an hour southwest of Orlando. It is situated on a hill known locally as iron mountain which rises 342 feet above sea level, making it the highest point in peninsular Florida and the second highest point in the state. The tower was built in the 1920s for Edward Bok and the gardens surrounding it were designed by Frank Law Olmstead, Jr. After Bok's death, it was given to the State of Florida. Although one cannot go up in the tower we did get to hear the 60 bell carillon give a concert and we enjoyed walking around the grounds taking in the views of the surrounding orange groves and enjoying the scenery of the ponds and native Florida trees. We also visited the Pinewood Estate property next door and enjoyed seeing the house professionally decorated for the holidays. The house was at onetime the winter home of C. Austin Buck, the one-time president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. Although the Christmas decorations were very pretty, we would have rather been there on an ordinary day when they give the regular tour which would have been more informative. You can read more about Bok Tower and the Pinewood Estate at their website: http://www.boktowergardens.org.

I have posted an album on Facebook with some of my pictures from my trip. You do not need to be a member of Facebook to view these photos. Just click on the following link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=47835&id=1410030498&l=999cc50b56

After our visit to Bok Tower, we went to the nearby Spook Hill. I had always heard of Spook Hill, a hill where it appears that one can roll backwards up a hill. It is really just an optical illusion but it sure seemed real when we were there. Here is a video of my parents' car rolling backwards "up" the hill:

Birthday Weekend 2009

For my birthday (Monday Oct. 5) this year I decided to spend the weekend with my parents and my brother at my parents' condo in Ponce Inlet, Florida. We had a fun time and since it has been a while since I've blogged I thought I would write about it.

I arrived Sat. afternoon and spent the rest of the day just hanging out at the condo relaxing and doing nothing. We had dinner that night at Down the Hatch, overlooking the Halifax river and watched the sun set. Sunday morning we just relaxed once again but that afternoon we went to the science center down at the inlet. The science center consisted of a museum, a turtle rehabilitation center, and a bird rehabilitation center. We visited all three. The museum had several display aquariums of sea life in the area. As I have my own aquarium, albeit fresh water, I enjoyed these exhibits the most. The turtle rehab center is a small hospital where sick or injured turtles are isolated and cared for until they heal and are ready to return to the wild. There were turtles there for a variety of reasons, such as propeller injuries, digestive issues, and fight wounds. There was one display showing the kinds of things that often end up in their stomachs, such as fish hooks, cigarette butts, and deflated balloons! The bird sanctuary was a similar facility for birds and there were several varieties there including owls, pelicans, bald eagles, and even a stork with a broken wing. That night we went to one of my favorite restaurants Aunt Catfish's in Port Orange. I enjoyed Lobster (for $12.99!), the giant salad bar, and their cinnamon rolls.

Monday on my birthday we drove up to Saint Augustine for the day. Saint Augustine is the oldest city in the United States, founded by the Spanish in 1565. I had not been in about 15 years though I went several times as a kid with boy scouts and school. Our first stop was the Castillo de San Marcos fort built in 1762 to protect the city from the British and French. We took a self guided tour of the fort and saw various rooms, an old prison, a chapel, and a musket demonstration. We also walked around on the ramparts looking at the old canons and admiring the view. After the fort we went over to the Columbia restaurant for lunch but it was closed. We were all disappointed as we had been talking for several days about eating there. At this point it was super humid and we were super hungry. Not a good combination for four stubborn people. But after going to three other restaurants we finally found an Italian one that we all agreed on and ended up having a really nice time. After lunch we walked through the historic district to the Cathedral and went inside just as it started to rain. After that, we slowly made our way up St. George Street running from awning to awning dodging the rain. Before we left town we decided we would go take a tour of the oldest house in Florida. It looked simple enough to find on the map but we hadn't counted on their being so many one way streets and several being flooded. It was actually nice to get lost though and see the old city from a different perspective (that probably is not how my mom would describe it though as she was driving). The oldest house in Florida was built in 1702 shortly after the British burned St. Augustine. The house had had several owners over the last 300 years and the different rooms were decorated to each show a different time period in the history of the house. We then drove around a little more before leaving St. Augustine, having had a fun day. That night we had breakfast for dinner, an ancient Rencher Sunday tradition (even though it was Monday) which I enjoyed experiencing on my birthday.

Thanks Mom and Dad for a fun weekend.

I have posted an album on Facebook of pictures from the weekend. You do not have to be a member of Facebook to view them. Just click on the link below and enjoy:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=38706&id=1410030498&l=27a846e850

Easter 2009 Pictures

I have created an album on Facebook with some of my Easter pictures. You can check it out at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=22009&id=1410030498&l=1adc814e21

You do not need to be a member of Facebook to look at the album. And if you want to see more of the inside of my grandparents' house there is a link below to my family's weblog.

Easter Weekend 2009

I realize it has been quite some time since I last blogged. When I set up my blog just before my trip to Yellowstone, I intended to go on more trips and to write more about those trips. But the economic situation has led me to decide to focus on saving money this year, and therefore, I have no big trips planned. Nevertheless I do plan on taking some small trips mainly with my family and I have decided to go ahead and blog about these.

I took some time off around Easter this year and went to see my parents and brother in Orlando for a few days. We saw several things that I thought would be interesting to write about.

I arrived in Orlando on Saturday morning, April 11th and my parents picked me up at the airport. After picking me up, we headed to rural Seminole County near Chuluota to see my Grandfather’s old ranch and house. Granddad sold the ranch in 1960 so that his children could go to college and he could retire. Much of the land is now a girl scout camp but the house that he built there is still standing. We had not called ahead so we just pulled in the front gate when we saw it was open. Although, we couldn’t walk in the house, I was allowed to walk around the grounds and take pictures. The house is a very plain one story rectangular building with a gravel roof and a screened-in porch around the back. The back yard slopes down to a lake with a dock. I noticed a large live oak tree in the back yard and asked my mom if she remembered it as a kid. She said that they used to have a rope swing on it and while they never climbed it, they did play around it a lot. I had heard about the ranch and this house many times growing up and I was thankful to have had a chance to finally see it.

On Sunday we went to Easter service at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church in Altamonte Springs, the church that I grew up in and that my parents still attend. It was good to see old friends and faces. After church, we went back home and had a nice Easter meal of ham, sweet potato casserole, and green beans. Later that afternoon, we went into Orlando and had the opportunity to go inside my grandparents’ old house in Colonial Town. The house was designed and built by my grandfather in 1937. My grandmother sold the house in 1995 when she moved into a retirement home. It has been owned since then by a Mr. Ellis. He recently put the house up for sale but has since taken it off the market. Nevertheless, he allowed us to walk around and take pictures. It was neat to be back in the house after so much time but it also felt strange for it to be decorated by someone else in a way that I was not used to. After seeing the house we went across the street to see my grandmother’s neighbor Amelia who has lived there since my mother was a little girl. We had a nice visit and it was hard for me to believe that Amelia is almost 100 years old! I have posted pictures of the inside of the house on our family blog at http://www.ryboltfamily.blogspot.com/ if you would like to see them.

Monday, my mom had a bunch of activities planned for us. We began with a morning boat tour of the Winter Park chain of lakes. Lakes Osceola, Virginia, and Maitland are connected by canals and the tour was of the three lakes and the canals. It was about 80 degrees and breezy and in my opinion, the perfect weather for a boat ride. We went past many mansions on the lakes as well as Rollins College. Although I had grown up in the area, I never really knew about the canals. The longest one, the Venetian, is about half a mile long. It is only wide enough for one boat and I’m not sure what happens when two meet going in opposite directions as the canal is not regulated. There were many large homes and gardens on the canal as well. Perhaps the best part for me of the whole tour was getting to see the Dinky Dock and beach on Lake Virginia. This lake is where my brother and I took swimming lessons as kids from Fleet Peoples, the same man that taught my father to swim when he was a child. The beach looked a lot smaller than I remember. Afterward, we ate lunch at a deli on Park Avenue in downtown Winter Park and then went by the cemetery where my other grandmother is buried.

That afternoon we went to the Henry P. Leu Gardens in Orlando. This was another local attraction that had been there a very long time but that I had never been to. The Gardens and house were all part of the Leu Estate that was donated to the city of Orlando in 1961. Today, one can tour both the house and the extensive gardens. On the house tour, we learned the story of the three families that had occupied it, the first being the Mizell family in the 1880s. Mr. Mizell was sheriff of Orange County and ended his term in office when he was assassinated. In fact, many of the stories told to us about Orlando and Central Florida in the late 19th century sounded more like the wild west than the densely populated tourist mecca that Orlando is today. After taking the house tour we walked around the rose garden and I took pictures. There were a lot of other gardens to explore but we were all tired from being outside so we ended our day there. Later that night we went out for seafood, a great way to end a nice visit with my family.

I will probably soon post some pictures on Facebook and put a link here. The pictures of my grandmother's house that I posted on our family weblog took me two hours to post and arrange, confirming for me that blogspot is best for writing which is what I enjoy mostly anyway. So check back soon for a link to pictures.

Yellowstone Part Three

I know it's been almost a week since the trip but I forgot to mention a few things in my last post. As Todd and I drove over the continental divide last Sunday, at 8,000 plus feet, it began to snow. It snowed rather heavily for a while but none seemed to stick to the pavement. Once we were at lower elevations and out of the park the snow stopped and the sky cleared up a bit. We went back through Grand Teton National Park and stayed overnight in Jackson, Wyoming.

Jackson, Wyoming can best be described as a posh old fashioned western town. The sidewalks are wooden, there are saloons and cowboy bars, and the town square is surrounded by arches made of antlers. But there are also art galleries and high end clothing stores. We had drinks at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar where we sat on saddles at the main bar and later that now, went to a steakhouse for my birthday.

So we had a fun trip and now for the moment everyone has been waiting for--pictures. I have found it easier to post an album on Facebook and instead of posting them here a second time I will just give this link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=6482&l=aa201&id=1410030498

For those of you afraid of a facebook link, this link is to the album only and you do not have to be a facebook member to view these pics. So enjoy and stay tuned for more trips next year.

Yellowstone Part Two

Greetings from Jackson, Wyoming. We are staying here tonight and coming back home tomorrow. Today is my birthday and it also would be my Grandfather's 100th birthday. Anyway, now that I am out of Yellowstone, I can post another entry to my blog, so here we go. (If you didn't read the first part, scroll down before reading this one).

After our lunch in Gardiner, Montana, we returned to Yellowstone and saw the Terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs. The most famous one, Minerva Terrace, is now dormant. We were disappointed with that, especially since a picture of it with water trickling down and making yellow, brown, and orange colors is on the official Yellowstone brochure. But there were more active springs trickling down on the other side of the hill. This area like all the geothermal features in the park appears desolate with no visible signs of life. This is caused by the heat and acid of the water. You can even see places where the thermally active areas are moving by the dead trees at the edge of the desolate areas.

After hiking around the terraces, we returned to the Old Faithful Inn for dinner and hung out there for the evening. On the way back, and earlier in the day as well, we passed several wildlife along the roadway, mainly Bison and Elk. There was even one place where a Bison was walking along the road way and we just rolled down the window and took a picture. Also, in Mammoth Hot Springs, there was a whole herd of Elk lounging in the grass on the main square by the hotel. The herd consisted of about 20 females and one male. The male had a large rack of antlers on his head. I was told by park ranger that the females are out year round but that the males only come out in October during "the rut" which I assume is mating season. He also said there were so few males because they are so competitive and kill each other.

Each night we hung out in the lobby of the Inn. In fact, that was the thing to do as there was no television there. The lobby was a hubbub of activity such as I have never before seen at a hotel. There were people reading and writing, playing cards with there families, drinking wine, beer, and coffee, or simply just watching the fireplace and listening to the piano player. Todd and I both enjoyed the experience of just relaxing on the lobby balcony and watching people. It reminded of an old Agatha Christie novel, where everyone is always hanging out in the hotel lobby. Unfortunately, most hotel lobbies I have been to, including the one I am in right now, have nothing going on but people checking in and out. I'm glad there was no TV at the Old Faithful so we could have that unique experience.

Saturday was remarkably colder and wetter that the previous days. We began the day at Midway Geyser Basin to see the Grand Prismatic Spring. This spring, as seen from the air, is the size of a football field and colored like a rainbow because of the various bacteria that live there. But we could only stand by the surface, shivering in the cold and rain, and see steam rising up from the surface. We felt like Frodo and Sam in the Lord of the Rings wondering if that was where we should throw in the ring.

Fortunately, it stopped raining after we left there so that by afternoon, we could enjoy the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The canyon is cut by the Yellowstone river and has two waterfalls, the upper and lower falls. We took a scenic drive with several stops along the way and got some great views of the canyon and both falls. When I post pictures later, I will of course include them.

We took the long way back to the Inn, through Hayden Valley where we saw bison herds and along the Yellowstone lake. Along the way, we stopped at the Sulfur Cauldron and the Mud volcano. The Sulfur Cauldron is a muddy spring of sulfuric acid that has the acidity of battery acid. Once again the whole area around it looked desolate. The mud volcano was a similar spring but on the side of a hill and it was spewing out muddy water continuously, as was it's neighbor, the Dragon's Mouth. The smell of sulfur was strong in all of these areas, and in fact, permeated all the geothermal areas of the park.

We are now in Jackson, Wyoming where we are going to go out for steak to celebrate my birthday. I am sad that the trip is almost over but I look forward to coming home and posting my pictures for all to see. I hope you have enjoyed my first travel blog posts.

Yellowstone National Park

Hello everyone and greetings from Gardiner, Montana. As many of you know, I am at Yellowstone National Park for the weekend with my friend Todd. I finally started a travel blog only to find out yesterday that there is no Internet anywhere in Yellowstone NP so this will be by only entry until possibly Sunday when we are in Jackson, Wyoming. I plan to post pictures when I am back home.

We arrived in Jackson Hole yesterday and were immediately overwhelmed by the natural scenery. I don't know a really good way to describe it except to say that we really had that sense of being very small and in the middle of nowhere. We drove through Grand Teton National Park on our way to Yellowstone. The Grand Tetons are tall rocky mountains with pointed peaks that reminded French explorers of breasts, hence the name. The scenic road wound through a long wide valley with the Tetons on our left. We stopped at Jenny lake and took pictures and then continued on to Yellowstone. All along the drive we passed numerous lodgepole pines and groves of Aspen trees with leaves turning bright yellow.

Once in Yellowstone we stopped a few times and took pictures of rivers and waterfalls along the way. We passed over the continental divide several times as it winds haphazardly through the park. We finally arrived at our hotel late in the afternoon. We are staying at the historic Old Faithful Inn, a 100 year hotel built out of logs. The lobby has a 70 foot open area with a giant fire place and several balconies with chairs and couches. There is a large patio outside with a bar and a perfect view of the famous Old Faithful Geyser which erupts about every 90 minutes.

Yellowstone NP sits in the giant Caldera of an ancient volcano that exploded about 640,000 years ago. The whole area is still active and has more geysers and other geothermal features than the rest of the world combined. There are literally geysers and hot springs everywhere one looks. We spent this morning walking around the upper geyser basin which is next to our hotel. There are boardwalks to walk on as it is not safe to walk near the geysers and hot springs because new ones can pop up at anytime and the water is boiling hot and often highly acidic.

Later, we took a long drive up here to Gardiner, Montana outside the north entrance of the park. We came here to eat lunch and to say that we have been to Montana. Montana is now the 39th state that I have been to. On the way here we stopped and took more pictures at the Fountain Paint Pots, a bubbling mud spring. There were more geyser there and we actually saw someone walking down to way to see what the water felt like. As Todd said, "Bill, we are now witnessing stupidity!"

We are now heading back into the park to Mammoth Hot Springs where we will see the travertine terraces. These are terraced calcium carbonate formations formed from water bubbling up from the ground with a high mineral content. I will write more about that in my next entry. I hope all are well.