Tuesday, January 17

We visited a beautiful spot on Tuesday; Bok Sanctuary and Bell Tower in Lake Wales. Turns out, Bok was a affluent publisher (Lady’s Home Journal) who had this land preserved in the late 1920s. Thank you, Mr. Bok.

The Bell Tower is 75 feet high and has 60 bells in it which are played like an organ or piano. We were fortunate enough to be there for one of the two daily concerts. But even if you do not get to hear the bells other than striking on the hour, the gardens that surround it are worth the trip. There are several hundred acres set aside as a preserve at the highest point in Florida…Iron Mountain which is 280 feet above sea level.

I cannot imagine how men like Bok accumulated such wealth to buy and set up conservatories like this one, but I am glad they were altruistic enough to leave us the legacy of natural beauty that they did. His landscape architect was the gentleman who designed the gardens around the White House. Silent Cal Coolidge came down here in the middle of the winter in 1929 and accepted the estate for the people. Interesting.

You can tell I was moved by this place. In fact, I called Nancy (Lutzbelz) just to talk about it while we were there. I assumed she had been there before with her parents in their trips to Florida…and I was correct. She and Jim were here in 1989 as well. So that was fun.

Monday evening after dark we went out in the modified golf carts to the sand forest which is the undeveloped land that borders Tanglewood with three other couples. Willie has his cart equipped with big tires and jacked up several inches. It goes quite well in sand. One guy thought it must be 4 WD but, it obviously is not…it just goes well in sand. Anyhow, there we were…four couples in two carts drinking beer and unlike the days of our past, not making out with the women (girls) we were looking at the stars and enjoying the full moon! What a hoot.

We are winding down…last dinner out, last this, last that and are preparing to pull out on Friday morning for northern Florida and a chance to see Micki and Jodi and their husbands and kids (two were pre-mies last summer.) So we are looking forward to that. Not sure of the details, but we will at least hope to see them.

We will be on the road for our January 23 anniversary; we then head west through Texas.