Crane's Bend

I took a morning walk to pick up vouchers for this afternoon's round on the nine hole Crane's Bend course - a two mile round trip.

My return took me past some of the holes we will be playing and also past the "beach".  It was deserted due to the cool, breezy weather, although Jo-Anne, in true Canadian style, spent some time here just after I passed by.

This is one of the holes we can see from our unit, which is just over the tee sign on the left.

And this is the par three that comes down the other side of our unit.

This is the island green hole.  Most of you have heard the story of her seagull conflict, but it does bear repeating.

The first time she played this hole, Mardi hit the green, just a few feet from the hole.  So we drove up and walked across the bridge.  As she reached the green, Mardi noticed a seagull pushing her ball off the green with its beak.  So she started to yell and ran at it.  The seagull promptly picked the ball up, flew out over the water, and dropped it.  You should have heard Mardi yell then!

Today we both got across, but not on the green.

So, we tied on "popular vote" (score), but I won the "electoral" total (holes) by one.  Mardi immediately did a Bernie Sanders and claimed that only the popular vote really counted.  Shame!

Prior to the golf game, we played some Skip-Bo with Jo-Anne.  I know you're wondering - yours truly won that too.

Tomorrow we head to Mount Dora, one of our favourite locales.  Dinner will be at Asian Fusion, also one of our favourites.

Winter Park

Our first stop in Winter Park was for a boat tour of three of the six connected lakes.  We toured the three largest lakes shown below.

Canals link the lakes.  The canals were dug in the 1800's to facilitate the floating of pine logs to the mill as the forests were harvested.

Winter Park was, starting in the 1880's, the winter playground of the industrial titans of the time.  Some of the homes are monstrous.

Nice boathouse!

This one was rented by Tom Hanks when he was filming at NASA.

Rollins College skirts one shore of Lake Osceola.  Tuition is currently $70,000 a year - same as Princeton.

Surprisingly, we found out that Fred Rogers, i.e. "Mr. Rogers" of A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood, attended Rollins, in the music program.  When he was not allowed to take his own piano into the school, his father bought this house for Fred and his sister to use while they were enrolled at Rollins.

Don't know what it cost him, but this piece of land, with no house, would be worth $5,000,000 today.  So I guess the guy who was portrayed as a minister didn't have it too bad at all.

After the tour, we headed for the Bosphorus Turkish Cuisine.

Excellent food!

After lunch it was off to the Albin Polesak Sculpture Garden.
We took the tour, which was very informative.

To the left below, the artist's self portrait.  To the right, a picture of him in his youth.

He eventually suffered a stroke that paralyzed his entire left side, but still continued for the last fifteen years of his life to paint and sculpt, despite this affliction.  

Altogether, a very satisfying day!

Tomorrow the ladies are going to take advantage of some of the activities offered here at Orange Lake, and in the afternoon Mardi and I will play the nine hole Crane's Bend Course here at Orange Lake.

A Quiet Day

Jo-Anne's plane came in at 11:18 and since it was Swoop she naturally arrived hungry.

Lunch on the patio and then we watched the golfers/hackers for a while.  Today was a gorgeous day and we stayed outside until about 6 p.m. when the ladies decided to go for a walk.  Over 2 K they said.

This evening was spent watching Mitt Romney, the only honest Republican, tell why he was voting to convict Trump.  Finally, a ray of honour among the thieves!

And then Mardi led Jo-Anne through a Skip-Bo primer.  Jo-Anne has very good card sense, so we should have some interesting games.

While they were doing that I spent the time updating my TomTom GPS.  Took almost two hours but now we should be good to go.

Tomorrow will be much more interesting.  After a short shopping trip we plan to head to Winter Park, the playground of the rich and famous back in the day.

Nice Day

We played Swiss Fairways today.  Beautiful golf weather.  We were paired up with a pair of Canadian guys, Brian from North Bay and Peter from Gatineau.  They could hit it a ton, often straight.

I had it all covered today.  Every number from a 3 to a 10.  When the dust had settled, Mardi and I were tied on holes.  I don't know why, but she keeps insisting that beating me by 3 strokes should count for something!

We shopped for food and then settled in for the day.  

Tomorrow morning we head to the airport to pick up Jo-Ann.  Nothing else planned at this time.

Today was one of our nicest days yet.  Sunny, warm, no wind.

Mardi loved the reflections in the water and grabbed the camera.

And the Giant Egret that stood still for ages.

Then she stayed still herself for a while, soaking up rays.

The four of us walked to Breezes Restaurant for lunch (about three par threes away).  Then came back and finished our session of Skip-Bo. 

At the risk of my health, I hereby report the final score - 
545 to.........drum roll please............0.  That's a zero!  You heard it here first.

With that, Matt and Maureen were clear to go.  We may meet them at the Circle B Bar Reserve in a week or so, but otherwise it will be a month until we share the Davenport house.

So, we're on our own for a couple of days.  Probably golf tomorrow.  I will report the scores if I win.

2020.02.02

Sanctuary Ridge is the cheapest and most interesting course in the area.  Virtually every fairway rolls to one side or the other.  Today was chilly and windy to add to the challenges.

The second hole is a par three - the green is out of sight below us.  From this point you can see number three to the right and four, five and six in the middle background.

Number nine is Mardi's nemesis.  If she doesn't get to the bottom of the hill in front of the green her next shot can't reach the green and it will just roll back down the hill.

From this same spot you can see the tenth hole.  The tee area is where you can barely see the carts - centre left.  The green is lower right in the gap in the trees, a blind second shot.

This is the view from the tenth tee.

Today was our last chance to play golf with Matt and Maureen until March when we share the Davenport rental house.  They head to the Gulf coast tomorrow.

I beat the Queen Bee on score and holes today but she and Maureen got even at cards.  They won our third session of Skip-Bo by a score of 510 to 50.

Sounds serious, but in the fourth session the boys are ahead by 355 to zip.  Not sure when we'll get a chance to finish this one - it may have to wait until March.

After Matt and Maureen leave we'll be alone and lonely until our friend Jo-Anne Vanstone arrives on Wednesday.

"Home" Again

We headed to the Village Restaurant for breakfast, before finishing our errands this morning.  Then we locked the door and headed for the greenhouse to see David, Sue and the (now adult) twins.

Then it was off to the border.  The rest of the day went like clockwork and we arrived back at Orange Lake at 8:15 p.m.
Love the new Nexus cards.  They treated us like human beings at Buffalo Airport security.

The Nissan Versa cost us $46. U.S. total for the overnight.  Parking at the airport on the other hand was $38. U.S.  Add the airfares, gas and tolls and we still saved over $4,000 Canadian on our health insurance with this gambit.  Stupid that we had to do it, but we put the time to good use.

After we left yesterday, Matt and Maureen played Sanctuary Ridge and they have scheduled it for tomorrow as well.  Talk then.