A few months ago I posted some photos of sunset at Newton Park in Winter Garden; this morning a very early start to my day offered sunrise photos at the same location (in the other direction, of course!)
Sunrise over Lake Apopka
Leu Gardens
Today we visited Leu Gardens, about half an hour away the other side of Orlando. A little like a tiny Kew Gardens, with no need for a glass house in Florida! In fact the weather was the one negative of our visit – it was crazy hot!
Here are some photos:
Rainbow over Stanton
No rain over us last night, but nearby and with the sun behind us we get a short-lived rainbow over our home!
West Orange Trail railroad tracks
The West Orange Trail nearby runs where once were railroad tracks that ran east / west across Florida, as well as further destinations – transporting oranges and people to the north cities, for example, in the late 1800s through to mid 1900s. Here’s a partial map from about 100 years ago (from Wikipedia):
There must have been two tracks at one time, and they ran right through what is now the center of Winter Garden; here’s a picture from 100 years ago, and Google Street View from today – the two buildings on the right are the same (though they serve different purposes now!):
Winter Garden 1914
Winter Garden 2017
A couple of miles west of this view, there’s a place where one set of railroad tracks must have been abandoned long ago; trees grew up between and eventually over them, so that when the route was converted to a trail, these tracks were left (rather than killing the trees) – I took some photos today:
Briley Farm
Our new home is just a short walk or bike ride to the West Orange Trail; heading east takes us into Winter Garden downtown, while west takes us to the next town Oakland (and further eventually out of Orange County, into Lake County and Clermont).
In Oakland close to the Oakland Nature Preserve is Briley Farm, and sometimes it’s possible to spot unusual animals there – here’s some pictures and video from this morning, with Zebra and Wildebeest!
Cruz N Car Show April 2018
This was our first chance to walk into town for the quarterly Winter Garden Cruz N Car show; always enjoyable especially when the weather is nice!
(previous posts: April 2017, September 2016)
Exotic cars at Celebration
Margaret drove us over to Celebration today to see cars much more expensive than our own new ones – and there were A LOT of them!
There were a lot of Ferraris as well – mostly red!
And even beyond the level of Ferraris, a couple of rare beasts including a Bugatti and Pagani!
There’s 24 hour security at Celebration while this event occurs – no surprise!
