Lake Placid, FL

 

Wednesday, we drove 1 ½ hours to Lake Placid, FL. On our way, when we were stopped at a traffic light, we found ourselves in the midst of a lot of tractor trailers. It reminded me of the times we have traveled, I-81 in southwestern Virginia where there seems to be more of these trucks than any other place we travel.

 

 

This was our fourth visit to Lake Placid in the past 5 years. We discovered this delightful town by accident as we were making our first winter trip to Florida. Today, we planned to spend the day there with my cousin, Kurt, and his wife, Ruthie, who had traveled from their home in Virginia to spend a week in Kissimmee. If we had not extended our time here, we would not have been able to meet up with them.

 

 

 

 

 

Lake Placid has two nicknames—"Town of Murals" and "The Caladium Capital of the World." There are more than 40 murals painted on buildings throughout the town, and 98 percent of the world's caladium bulbs come from Lake Placid.

 

 

There are also several geocaches hidden around the town. We spent a few hours walking around while looking at the murals and finding caches.

 

 

Cordell and I enjoyed watching Kurt and Ruthie look for a cache that we had previously found. It was placed inside the swinging lid of this cleverly constructed trash receptacle. Kurt finally found it while Ruthie was diligently searching the other side.

 

 

 

I liked this smoker that resembles a pig.

 

 

There is a clown school in town and Lake Placid proudly claims the highest percentage per capita number of clowns of any community in the state.

 

 

We had lunch at a restaurant that buys its meat from local suppliers.

 

 

We spent some time in a museum and I was interested in a folding bench wringer. As a young school girl, I often helped my mother wash clothes while using a wringer washer, but I never saw a contraption like this one. The instructions were amusing as was the spelling,

 

 

 

We spent some time in one of the shops where I noticed this display for Mother’s Day.

 

 

 

We saw this amusing sign in the parking lot at the post office. We didn’t see any golf carts or a golf course though.

 

 

We enjoyed some tasty sugar free chocolate ice cream at Cow Pies Country Store and Creamery. These chairs were so large that two people could have fit in each of them. There was a tic-tac-toe game on the table that used rocks for the playing pieces.

 

 

 

Kurt and Ruthie reached a milestone today when they found their 100th geocache!

 

 

 

 

 

One of the most difficult caches we visited today was placed in one of the supports for a huge sign. Kurt was the first one to see it.

 

 

 

 

We stopped by a cache site on our way back to Fort Myers. A previous cacher had written in their log that they had rousted a rat. So, I made sure I had my hiking stick with me and I was ready to defend myself.

 

 

 

 

 

Geocaching Day!!

Even though we have found 3,463 geocaches, there still plenty others out there just calling our name. So, we made another trip to Naples today.

 

As has been our previous experiences, we have noticed a lot of upscale shops and housing developments in the area. When we saw a Ford Explorer leaving one such community, Cordell remarked that we too could afford to live there since we drive the same type of vehicle. My answer to him was that it most likely was the maid or the dog walker who had just finished their job.

 

We began our adventure at Vineyards Community Park.

 

 

 

One only has to look at the picnic tables to realize that this park is a few steps above the ones we normally visit. These tables were not made of wood or cement, but some type of nice stone or other material.

 

 

This park offers many activities such as softball fields, soccer fields, tennis courts, basketball courts, racquetball courts, shuffleboard courts and playground—most of which are lit. Also, there are picnic shelters, a water play feature for children, a pavilion and a walking trail around the lake.

 

 

 

 

The Community Center offers many varied programs. I noticed a flyer for an advanced line dance class in addition to a Father/Daughter dance.

 

 

 

We enjoyed a nice walk around the lake admiring such a nice facility. However, I-75 is located very near and I found the sound of traffic to be annoying.

 

 

We saw these cormorants sunning at the lake and wondered if that the white arrow on the ground might be like an airport landing site for them.

 

 

We liked the image on this sign for pet owners.

 

 

We bought some sandwiches at a grocery store and ate our lunch at Max A. Hasse, Jr. Community Park.

 

 

Near our picnic table, we watched a couple classes of school students who were taking exercises. Their instructor had them counting repetitions by 5’s which I thought was a good match exercise, too.

 

 

After the students finished their exercises, they had a long run to a field where they had other activities they were doing. Can you imagine how nice it must to have P.E. class outside during all the months?

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday

This morning we worshipped at Zion Lutheran Church here in Fort Myers. We attended the 10:45 am. “blended service” which consists of liturgy and songs. Before the service ended, the Pastor requested that all the snowbirds who were leaving this week to stand and then he said a nice prayer for them. I also noted that the Service Program had an item that asked the snowbirds to change their contact information to their “northern address”.  They have an associate minister and his wife who are snowbirds and they will be flying back home next week.

 

 

Earlier this morning, our son Andy sent us a text with this photo and commented that this was what we almost came home to. For sure, this would have been the day we would have arrived back home had we not been able to extend our time here in Florida.

 

 

It was such a beautiful day here that we could not resist doing something outside. And so we took off to look for a few geocaches. I wanted to do a bit of hiking so we started at the Caloosahatchee River Preserve West. This is our 5^th winter here in Southwest Florida and we still are finding different preserves to visit.

  

 

 

A sign was posted at the beginning of the trail advising that the trial might be under water and to be prepared to get our feet wet.

 

 

We hiked through some very pretty vegetation and we did not encounter any water or mud. I wondered how this area must have looked to the first people who originally explored it and later to the ones who developed it. I cannot imagine how much planning and work went into draining the swamps to make it what it is today.

 

 

 

 

One of our geocache searches took us to a property where goats are raised. We met the 15 year old cache owner’s father who was moving 3 of his goats from one field to another. We had a very interesting conversation with him about the business of raising and selling goats. Currently he has 40 goats, many of which will be having babies soon.

 

 

 

 

 

Early in our conversation, when he found out that we were from Maryland, he told us that he had graduated from Johns Hopkins University. Jokingly, I replied that I didn’t know that they had a study for goat farming.  He had a good laugh and then told us that he is an eye surgeon here in Fort Myers and that goat farmers cannot afford to drive a Porsche.

 

 

Another geocache took us to a boat launching site. We saw some very pretty homes along a canal which looked like a very nice place to live.

 

 

 

We ended our adventure at a Florida Forest Service site.

 

 

 

 

There was a field puzzle here that required us to find information on the sign to get the coordinates for the final placement of the cache. It was a very easy puzzle to solve and the cache was on the ground beside this Smokey the Bear sign.

 

 

 

 

We took full advantage of this 3^rd bonus day and were more than ready to relax when evening arrived.

 

 

 

 

 

No April Fool’s Joke on Us!

Instead of beginning our drive back to Maryland on April Fool’s Day as originally planned, we began a two week extension for our time here in Florida. I was so happy that I felt like a kid at Christmas.

 

On this evening, 48 years ago, the best April Fool’s prank was played on me when my second son, finally decided to make his appearance in this world after being 19 days overdue. If he had just waited 1 ½ more hours, he would not be an April Fool. He was gifted with a keen sense of humor that has kept myself and others laughing.

 

We made a trip to Punta Gorda to look for some geocaches. When we stopped for lunch at a fast food restaurant near an intersection with I-75, we were exceeding grateful that we were not part of all the traffic traveling north.

 

 

Unbeknown to us, at one of the geocache locations, a family of 5 frogs had taken up residence. Three of them leaped out at us when we first began searching. I’m not sure who jumped the farthest—us or the frogs. We must have looked very silly if anyone had been around to see this spectacle.

 

 

Some geocache owners devise cute containers to hold their logs and I liked this elf one we found hanging in a tree.

 

 

Another cache took us to a location where I saw a sign posted for an Alligator Creek Salinity Barrier. I realize that there are lots of government controls and restrictions involving the wildlife here in Florida and especially so for alligators. I wondered what kind of cockamamie idea someone had devised for the alligators that exist mainly in fresh water. I later learned that the primary purpose of this structure is to prevent saltwater encroachment, during high water events when the manually operated gates can be opened to lower the Alligator Creek level to increase the storage capacity upstream of the structure.

 

 

I saw Spanish Moss hanging on some tree trunks. Usually, I see the moss draping from limbs of trees.

 

 

We especially enjoyed this day and look forward to 14 more of them.