Lakeland Florida

A little drive up to Lakeland today, made a stop at the Hollis Gardens at Lake Mirror. They were replanting a lot of the garden.

After that it was a stop at the Circle B Bar Reserve at Lake Hancock. We hiked about 2.5 miles here's a few pictures of some of the wildlife

AS ALWAYS CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO ENLARGE

Looks like the Spoonbill is sneaking up on the Gator

No Wildlife , just liked the reflection

 

Catching up.......

We're gone from the Winter Garden area and have moved on to the Sarasota area to spend Christmas week.

Our last day at Winter Garden we spent at the Harry P Leu Gardens so of course here are a few pictures.

Have never seen this one before

Looks like it was made from clay

Our first day in Sarasota just happen to be my 62^nd birthday so we bicycled over to De Soto National Park so I could get my SENIOR PASS.

One good thing about getting old

Anna Maria Island Pier

AND OF COURSE

Orlando area

We've been in the Orlando area for almost two weeks now and haven't done a whole lot other then biking around.  We're right near the West Orange Bicycle Trail so we've been getting in 10-18 miles a day, The trail takes you right through Winter Garden so we've spent quite a bit of time around there, they seem to have something going every weekend.

Today it was tobogganing, yes with real snow, they closed of one of the downtown streets and made a ramp then covered it with a big snow making machine.

 

Not the biggest in the world but the kids loved it.  It was in the mid 70's today.

In the middle of the bike trail they put up the Christmas tree, during the rest of the year there is a beautiful fountain located here.

The other end of the trail in downtown.

And out on the bike trail right near a high school Cathy spotted this.

About ten feet above the path.

While driving around Orlando we managed to find my Grandparents house, they moved down here in the 40's.

This is of my 4 brothers, taken a few years before I was born.  Not a lot of difference in the house

And then we stumbled on this, except we didn't find any Palm's buried here.

Landmark Park, Dothan Alabama

About three miles from the gardens is the Dothan  Landmark Park

The Agriculture Museum part is closed due to lack of funding but the other building were open to explore.  We spent about an hour here, there is a nature center in the woods and about a mile of trails.

Petting zoo area

Bees on the sugar cane press

School group all dress in period costume, working

Just an old wagon, I liked the faded coloring

Front doors of the church

General store

Dothan Botanical Gardens

Since I'm trying to get back into the blog mode I figured I might as well add a few other things we did on the way south this year.

Dothan Alabama Botanical Gardens

It was after Halloween but then still had all the scary decoration up through out the garden, these were put up by various businesses and groups from the area.  Here are some of the better ones.

Phantom

Warhol

This was back in the woods and made us step it up a bit

Neil Armstrong

What Happens to a Michigan Fan
in ALABAMA

Picasso

Scary Guy

Over by the Wedding Chapel area the have a gate covered with locks.

 Some of the Locks on the gate

  

Almost forgot that this was a garden so here's a few pictures.