Speer Family: Florida

Showing posts with label Florida. Show all posts

Friday

Some Common Ground at Common Grounds Park in Lakeland Florida

Now that the weather is starting to really heat up, here in Florida, it's time for most everyone to venture back out into the sunshine.

One of the newest, most-enjoyable places for kids to do that in Lakeland is at the Common Grounds park. This park, which was budgeted at almost $2 million dollars broke ground in October 2007. The park, itself, took almost 4 years of planning to come to fruition. It was scheduled to take almost a year for construction to be completed. It officially opened in January 2009. The park address is 1000 East Edgewood Drive.

Since it's inception, this park has seen heavy traffic from lots of local kids and families.

On the weekends, you can expect a really high turn-out by everyone in the neighborhood. If you want to have a bit of privacy with your family here, you should plan on visiting during a weekday, when other kids are at school. It's certainly not packed, like a Disney theme-park, but it can get pretty crowded on the weekends.

If you're looking for directions to get here, this is the Google map:

View Larger Map

It's pretty easy to find:
Traveling on Highway 37 (South Florida avenue), you would take Edgewood towards the east. Or coming from Bartow Highway, or Lakeland Highlands Blvd., you will head west on Edgewood.

The park itself is on the north side of Edgewood, just across from the Cleveland Heights Golf Course. The park is right next to the tennis courts.

There is no usage fee to play at the park. Kids can play for free to their heart's content. Common Grounds park was designed to accommodate kids of varying ages and abilities, including disabled children as well.

Some of the various features include:

A large tunnel, wide enough for wheelchairs, runs under a hill called Gopher Mountain.
The park itself is shaped like a giant butterfly, and it includes several sculptures of butterflies.
Many of the play structures are non-traditional, modern in design, which kids seem to really enjoy playing on.
It is a conservation park, in that it has artificial turf (instead of regular grass) so no water or mowing is required to keep the grounds maintained.

There is free parking on the south side, right next to the tennis courts. There is also parking along the streets running north beside the park (Buckingham Avenue).

To see some Common Grounds park pictures, please check out our visit.

The concept behind this park has even generated interest from other local communities around the country. It seems, lots of families with disabled children, are desperately looking for places where their kids can interact with their friends and peers.

Al

Sunday

The Many Faces of Lowery Park Zoo

Well, it's been almost a month ago, but I wanted to share a bit of our time our for Keeley's birthday. She turned 9 back in November, and wanted to head out to the zoo for her event for the day.

We have heard a tremendous amount about Tampa's Lowery Park Zoo, but we've never gone. So, we decided this would be a great day to get out there. On top of that... when you go on your birthday, to the zoo, you get in for free. That was a great price for us, so we took them up on that offer.

The Lowry Park Zoo turned out to be in an interesting part of Tampa. It definitely wasn't like riding up in the West Hills in Portland. This is a much older, more established part of town. There are lots of interesting homes and individuals hanging out as you drive down to the zoo. There was plenty of parking for us, which was also a bit of a shocker. You almost can't go to any 'hot spot' in the this state and expect to find easy parking. However, we parked quickly, and had a relatively short walk to the entrance.

The Lowry Zoo is actually a pretty popular zoo, and has been rated as a top zoo by Parents magazine. And it's pretty easy to see why. We arrived to the zoo pretty late, probably around 11, and we stayed until it closed. It seemed like we were walking from exhibit to exhibit and we still missed a couple of the animals. We didn't miss out on too many, but it just felt like we had to hurry to get through everything. So, it's a pretty large zoo, and you will probably need an entire day to see the whole park.

I think the 'best' part of this zoo is the proximity you have to the animals. I don't know if it's just old, or if the entire zoo was designed to feel this way... but there are LOTS of very close encounters you can have with the animals. And that, I think, is what makes Lowry Park so amazing and popular.

Feeding giraffe
Riding camel
Leaning over the penguin wall
And who knows what else we didn't experience

Here are a few pictures from our time at the Lowery Park Zoo.

Thursday

Florida Springs Family Bike Tour - Day 7

As we were planning the route, for our trip, this day was noted as almost 65 miles. And the notes said it contained a lot of rough, bumpy roads, with plenty of highway travel time. So, instead of torturing the girls by riding all 65 miles, we decided to go ahead and rent a truck. PLUS, I wanted my daughter to still 'kinda' love me when we got home. I didn't want a road rebellion right in the middle of the trip.

I'm not always smart, but I think this was a wise move on our part. If I haven't said it before, kids are very strong, but mentally they are not always willing to go along with my whims peacefully.

So, we trekked back to the closest u-haul shop, and rented the truck for the day. It cost a TON of money to do this. But, again, to save my sanity, I think it was money well spent. Unfortunately, don't tell the kids this, but it comes directly out of their Christmas gifts. I'm sure they will appreciate that! Just kidding.

Anyhow, we rented a truck, and threw all of the bikes and gear in the back end. And headed on down the road. Essentially we knocked the entire length of the south side of Gainesville on this leg of the trip. We traveled from Manatee Springs State Park back over to Gold Head Branch State Park. I think we rode 15-20 miles for the day.

We spent the last 2 days at Gold Head Branch. Enjoying the park, and the local town of Keystone Heights. Another point to remember, when you are on your bike... it is ALWAYS several miles back to the closest town from the park campgrounds. So, in the case of Manatee Springs, it was about 6-7 miles. In the case of Gold Head Branch it was 6-9 miles (depending on where you camped inside of the campground). In a car, that's no big deal at all. On a bike, it equals a 30-60 minute ride. That's okay, but just keep that distinction in mind when doing your planning.

Civilian Conservation Corps constructing road....

Image via WikipediaGold Head Branch State Park is a pretty cool park. It was originally built during the 30's, in the Great Depression, by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corpse). A concept America should have thought about before they threw all of their money at a bunch of bankers. Who knows what we could have done for the infrastructure of our country with all that money. Look at how well built things were back then:

Here's one of the buildings, still standing, from 70-80 years ago. They sure did a heck of a job on the stuff they built back then. Oh well, I guess!

Anyhow, it is a great park. The lake itself is not a spring, so it's not super clear, blue water. But it was SO cool to jump in, and it was absolutely refreshing on a hot day.

The craziest thing for us, was jumping into the lake on the very first night of our trip. We rode 40+ miles, and the girls and I were hot and tired. We were so late getting into the campground, that the sun was setting when we actually got into the water that first night. So, we just wanted to go jump in and feel refreshed. It was delightfully cool, and felt so good to head back down to camp after going for a super fast swim. It was about a mile (or so) from our campsite to the lake, so we had to ride to get everywhere.

Finally, we came back to the lake, at the end of our tour, and I noticed this sign:

So then I told the girls it was okay to go ahead and play in the water:

Actually, after they saw the sign, this was about as far as they would go in the water. And that was about all Chris would let them do as well. I couldn't resist though. I had to get back in. It was SO refreshing, and felt so good. Under normal circumstances, if there are dozens of people in the water, I wouldn't expect a gator to be anywhere near this portion of beach that they have roped off for swimming. It was a bit eerie to see that sign though. It makes you think twice about getting in the water... that's for sure.

Gold Head Branch also has an interesting creature that you can take a photo of. He's called the Mossman. I assume, it's similar to the Bigfoot or Swamp thing stories that have floated around the country for decades. This one is pretty cool.

Then, you get a few shots of us hanging around the campsite, doing what we do best... goofing off.

Finally, a few shots of the other great outdoor activity you can explore at Gold Head Branch. There are a couple of large lakes here for exploring. And with lots of wildlife running around, this has to be a great way to enjoy the area.

I'm sad to say, this is basically the end of our tour. We did have one last day of riding, but it concluded with use riding back to Palatka, FL. It was an inglorious finish, with some of the strongest headwinds and worst traffic of the entire trip.

Waiting for us was Mogwai, our trusty steed. I don't know that I've ever seen the girls happier than at that moment when we pulled into the parking lot, and were finally done pedaling.

Kaitlyn actually admitted that she had more fun on the trip than she expected. But, I don't know that she would have enjoyed one stroke more on the bike pedals than she absolutely had to.

If you have any questions or comments, I'll be glad to help out in any way that I can. Overall, traveling across a part of Florida by bike was one of the coolest things I've ever done. And it was encouraging to know that Chris and I were much stronger than we ever thought at riding. After this experience, a cross-country trip seems TOTALLY plausible.

I think Chris will have more details, and specifics, that I have left out over the length of the trip. But, I hope you've enjoyed checking out the journey.

All the best,
Al