p57 June 2015

Kanapah Botanical Gardens near Paynes Praire and west of Gainesville is a large diversified gardens, with butterfly, palm, rose, herb, bamboo, woodland, hummingbird, and azalea gardens.  Best time for visits are spring and fall when most of their flowers are in bloom.

A unique gardens is the new Cedar Lakes Gardens in Williston, Fl, SW of Gainesville, NW of Ocala.  Years ago a man bought a closed lime rock quarry and built a home overlooking the ponds created by the quarry.  He hired gardeners to create floral gardens among the rocks and ponds and along the walls.  To control erosion the lime quarry walls are lined with sprayed on concrete and rock.  Several waterfalls flow down the walls and boardwalks cross the ponds.  Trails weave up and down and around the gardens.  Last year the man retired and put the gardens and 24 acres into a non-profit charity and opened it to the public last month.  The garden uses plenty of sub-tropic plants, palms, and bamboo.

Silver Springs glass bottom boats are now part of the Silver Springs State Park.  Silver River State Park and the old Silver Springs attraction were combined into a new park.  Over the years the state has bought up old attractions that included springs to protect the springs from runoff from development which is what was happening at silver Springs.  Over the years the state has also bought Weeki Wachi, Deleon Springs, Homosassa Springs, and many others.

Of all the gardens I've been to, Gibbs Gardens in north Georgia still holds first place among my favorites, with Belingrath Gardens in Alabama in second.

Kanapah Gardens

 

Cedar Lakes Gardens

 

Silver Springs

p56 June 2015

Buffalo roam at Paynes Prairie state park south of Gainesville, Florida.  Wild horses also graze on the prairie on the north half of the large park.  The south half of the park is a forest with many trails, a campground, a museum, and a 3 story observation tower overlooking the prairie.  On the north border of the park is the hawthorne paved bicycle trail running east west for 16 miles plus an extension into Gainesville and side trips to overlooks, so that you can do over 40 miles total for the day.

 

 

In the 1980s the Dudley family donated acreage of their farm and its buildings to the state of Florida for a state park near Gainesville.  The state restored the buildings and opened it as a state park.  The Dudleys had moved to the farm in 1852.  The home and buildings are from the 1880s and included a separate kitchen and dining building, a general store, smokehouse, outhouse(3 holer), barns, and stables.  A garden is maintained as well as chickens and turkeys.  Special festival days are planned during the year.  The family got its first tractor in the 1930s.  All farm equipment was pulled by mules before that.  Electricity made it to the farm in the 1940s and plumbing finally got put in the house in the 1950s.

 

 

p55 April 2015

My nephew Brian, a navy petty officer is stationed on the USS Independence LCS-2 (littoral combat ship) out of San Diego.  The ship was docked at Pensacola when I was there.  I got the chance to be taken on a tour of the ship by my nephew along with my 2 Pensacola grandchildren.  The ship is a high speed, small crew, corvette.  It can take on various missions, including finding and destroying mines, hunting submarines, fighting small ships, and other secret missions.  The ship is a trimaran design with a wide beam that supports a flight deck for helicopters, a large hanger, and a mission bay below.  It has two gas turbine powered water jets that can go 44 knots and faster.  lm is controlled by joysticks instead of steering wheels.