Making Room For Retirement

Two blog posts in two days, must be making up for my week long absence. 

Today we went to Bok Tower Gardens.   


Bok Tower is a 205 foot tower, beautifully built out of a variety of stones.  It has a huge set of carillon bells that toll out the hour and half hours.  They also have live concerts on certain days of the week - and today was one of them.  

(sorry the pic is sideways, but it is a short video with a sound clip of the bells)

But here is one with the correct orientation 

The tower and the surrounding gardens are built on Iron Mountain - the highest elevation for Penisula Florida - 364 feet above sea level.  

Here is a pic of a cross section of Florida at this latitude 

 you can see that Iron Mountain  is quite a bit higher  



 This place is quite magical - very peaceful and quiet 

 and the botanical gardens are full of amazing wonders at every turn of the path.  We wandered around for about four hours and saw only a part of the 50 acres.  



This is called a beauty berry, 
very aptly named.  


While touring in the endangered species garden, we came across this 

a sundial in the sidewalk 



you place your feet on the month,



and your shadow marks the time. 

It worked, it was just before noon.  
    
Another sidewalk wonder, 
flat stones all turned on edge in the concrete, making a pattern.

 
 






Our admission of $20 included a tour of the Pinewood Estate - a home from the 30's that had been dressed up for the Christmas season by local designers.  









We were told that we would have a chance to vote on our favorite room at the end of the tour,   

This was Alf's fav


and this was mine.  


I also spied this sign and had to take a pic 
- a play on Alf's name







 and here is Saint Nicholas and his Alf 



 After touring the gardens and seeing all the delights we are inspired to plant a garden at our new home, but we will have to use drought tolerant plants because they won't get watered in the summertime.  

And the end of the day, we knew we wanted to come back again - 

this bush is loaded with buds and we want to see it in full bloom


a season membership for a couple is only $55 dollars and they took today's admission price ( $12 each, the other $8 was for the house tour)  which meant we only had to pay $31 for the two of us for entry for coming year.  A great bargain and well worth it. 


And now to close out our pics  

a serene shot of one of the ponds, the beauty of this place is mirrored in the still waters. 

Oh and just as an aside we have another bird photo from our backyard.   Don't know what or who he is, but we have nick named him - the Bearded Wonder  - if you look you can see his beard on his chest 

Well time to go - have a great day, eh! - and stay warm  

(I understand a storm is headed the way of our Canadian friends and family in the north)