Bok Tower Gardens

(Click on the photos for larger images.)

It was a beautiful sunny day in December when we visited Bok Tower Gardens. Christmas carols rang from the carillon in the Tower and the sweet fragrance of camelias drifted through the air.


At first I mistook the camelia blooms for roses, because their smell and appearance are similar.


The intricate details and colors of the Tower are amazing. The exterior is made of colored marble. Scenes of trees, flowers, and wildlife are depicted on colored ceramic tiles. Adam and Eve are in the tile scene at the balcony.


Marble eagles stand like sentinels around the crown of Bok Tower.


There are many places to sit and enjoy the setting.

The hill that Bok Tower stands on is at the highest point of elevation in Florida. You can see the ordered lines of orange groves for miles.

Bok Tower bears the name of Edward Bok. He was a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, and editor of "Ladies Home Journal" magazine during the late 1800's. Nearby Pinewood Estates was the Bok family's winter residence.

Bok became enamored by the natural setting around the hilltop and wanted to preserve it. Bok Tower was dedicated by President Calvin Coolidge after its completion in 1929. The estates were donated to the American people after Bok's death in 1930 as a sign of gratitute for the opportunities they had given him.


We had lunch at the cafe by the Visitors Center and then set out on a path towards the Pinewood Estates' manor house.


The mansion was decorated for Christmas.


A grand old oak tree shades the back of the house. I was impressed with how much of the architecture and decor was Spanish, considering Bok was from the Netherlands and owned a business headquarted in the Northeastern U.S. I asked one of the docents about the Spanish influence and she said that Bok traveled to South America often and admired Spanish styles.


A fountain on a patio near the entrance covered with painted tiles reminded me of the painted tiles at The Columbia restaurant in Ybor City.


I felt a little like Alice in Wonderland walking through a grove of tangerine trees cut into identical topiary shapes as we left Pinewood Estates. I thought about the words of Edward Bok over the entrance to the grounds as we departed, "Make you the world a bit better or more beautiful because you have lived in it."

Location
Lake Wales, Florida is about an hour's drive east from Tampa on Route 60.

Admission Fees
Parking is free. Admission to the grounds is $10 per person. Admission to the Pinewood Estates manor house is $8 per person.

More photos of our visit to Bok Tower Gardens and Pinewood Estates.

Tiffany Glass at the Morse Museum

We visited The Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Garden, FL. They have a large collection of art glass by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The pieces are from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The color and detail of the windows is impressive. There are many different styles of art represented: Art Nouveau, Arts & Crafts, and "Hudson River School" style paintings to name a few. There are other American artists and different media such as paintings, jewelry, pottery, and furniture. The Tiffany collection is the heart and soul of the museum. The additional pieces by other American artists and media bring the historical setting to life.

Many of the windows were salvaged from mansions in the Northeast before demolition. I tried to imagine the types of settings they were in. It would be interesting to see some of the other architectural pieces that the museum has collected. The Morse Museum rotates its collection seasonally.

Most of the trip was on I-4. The electrical towers along the road in the photo have wooden pallets and old satelite dishes attached to the tops of the towers to encourage birds of prey to nest there. There have been birds in the nests in January and February. Today I saw a bald eagle flying along the road.

LC-39 Observation Gantry

We went to Kennedy Space Center today and went on a tour that went to the LC-39 Observation Gantry. It's an observation tower where you can see the shuttle launch pads. This tour is closed on launch day.


This is a picture of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) where the space shuttles are lifted vertically to be fitted with the big orange fuel tank, solid rocket boosters, and otherwise readied for launch.


A shuttle engine on the LC-39 Observation Gantry.


A view up the shuttle engine. A launch can be scrubbed up to 3 seconds before lift-off. The shuttle engines fire up 3 seconds before the solid rocket boosters. That's to prevent the shuttle from being launched into space if the engines aren't working properly.


Shuttle Atlantis on the launchpad. You can see the black nose of the shuttle and the orange fuel tank. The wide part of the tower rotates away from the space shuttle for launch.


The platform with the tractors around it is the crawler that takes space shuttles from the tall Vehicle Assembly Building in the background to the launch pad. The crawler travels up to 1 mile per hour with the shuttle vertical and maneuvers the space shuttle into place at the launch pad.


Here is a panorama of the crawler path showing both space shuttle launch pads. I couldn't get both launch pads in one shot, so this is crudely stitched together. Click on any of the photos to see a larger version.


This is another photo of the VAB as we left the tour area. It is the third largest building in the world (by volume) and the largest one story building in the world. One of the stars on the American flag on the side of the VAB is 6 feet across. The blue field in the flag is the size of a regulation basketball court. You can see it from miles away.

STS-120 Shuttle Discovery Launch

We had to be at the Kennedy Space Center at 6am for the 11:38am launch. It was dark and the shuttle was lit up. It looked something like this. This picture is a painting in a NASA art gallery.


Kennedy Space Center entrance on launch day. The Discovery flag flies with the American flag.


We are 6 miles from the launchpad on a causeway across a bay on NASA property. You can see the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) in the background. The launchpad is off camera to the right. This place is the closest the public can get to a shuttle launch.


Shuttle Discovery clears the launchpad. We saw movement before we could hear it. The sound was much louder than at previous locations. It wasn't an earpiercing noise; it was a low rumble that shook you inside and out. Crackling sounds like a giant bonfire faded as the shuttle rose farther up into the sky.


Here's the launch sequence patched together. (Click on any of the photos in the blog for larger images.)


The cloud clears the launchpad. We could smell it. An announcement over the P.A. system said that we could be affected by hydrochloric acid fumes from the launch. If we felt like we had sore throats a drink of water would clear it up. I felt a minor irritation and a few sips of Pepsi washed it away.


The roll.


This is another painting from the NASA art gallery. If I were to make a composite of my experience watching the launch it would look something like this. There were people with cameras everywhere. The orange flame from the shuttle cut through clouds set against a blue sky.