Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Weekend in Florida

What would you do in Central Florida if you had just ONE DAY to do it in - and you didn't want to end up with a mouse ears tanline? I was stuck in Ocala over the weekend of March 19-20 in between sessions of a safety conference, so Lee Ann flew down to meet me. We picked a place called Bok Tower Gardens, near Lake Wales, as our Saturday destination. What a wonderful place - 250 landscaped acres, and in the middle is the cool tower pictured. All this was built in the 1920's by the guy who made his fortune as editor of the Ladies' Home Journal. They don't let you in the tower but it has a carillon and it's pretty fun to sit on a bench under moss-draped live oaks and just listen. We also roamed the grounds in perfect March-in-Florida weather. There is a Mediterranean-style mansion too, and we got to go through that. We even bought souvenirs at the visitor's center. It was a completely touristy day.