2010 March 16 Tuesday
At about 10:30 we left for Bok Tower Gardens at Lake Wales, about 45 minutes south of here, one of our favorite places. It is on the FL Birding Trail and has many acres of beautiful flowers, bushes, and trees, besides a 205 foot tall tower with a 60-bronze-bell Carillon in it. (Pictures coming soon.) The tower is built on a ridge that is the highest place in peninsular Florida, so you can see it for miles around. A live concert is given four days a week, recordings are played the other three days, and a song is played every half hour from 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. We heard 10 songs live, 5 of them Irish songs including “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling”. The place was built by Edward W. Bok (1863 - 1930), a Pulitzer Prize winning author, editor of The Ladies Home Journal for many years, and author of 12 books. He was born in the Netherlands, but came to the U.S. at age 6. He enjoyed winters at Lake Wales, and he enjoyed walking to the hilltop to watch the sunsets and the birds. The idea came to him to preserve the hilltop and create a bird sanctuary - a place of beauty, serenity, and peace. It still is, and we spent some of our time just sitting and enjoying nature and the birds. The best bird we saw was a painted bunting, one of the most colorful birds that exist. First time for Linda, only second time for me. Other than the common birds (robin, blue-jay, cardinal, dove, mocking bird, vulture, swans in the pond), here is our list: rufous-sided towhee, northern parula warbler, palm warbler, black & white warbler, yellow-rumped warbler, blue-gray gnatcatcher, Carolina wren, kestrel, red-headed woodpecker, flicker, red-bellied woodpecker, tufted titmouse, catbird, red-winged blackbird. We had lunch there, walked and looked and listened and sat, and come home at about 4:30. Light supper here, then tried to stay awake to watch the two-hour boys and girls show on American Idol. It seems to us that a few are beginning to stand out now - like Big Mike and the girl from Cape Cod with the piercings and the funny name.

WEATHER: High 70, low 52. Perfect, with only a slight breeze after two very windy days. The normal high now is 80, but we have seen that only for a couple of days in the last several weeks. That’s okay with us - we like low 70’s with lower humidity. Usually when it gets to 80, it also is more humid.

FL NEWS: “SPRING BREAK - WITH A PURPOSE”
Time was when spring break was synonymous with beer and bikinis. But these days, a large and growing number of college students are spending their precious time off helping under-privileged kids, abandoned pets, disabled veterans and disaster victims. Alternative spring break, as the movement is called, will draw roughly 72,000 students across the country this year, according to the national nonprofit Break Away. Florida is both a leading provider of student volunteers and the beneficiary of scores of team projects led by out-of-state students seeking a side of sunshine with their altruism. The super-achiever personality is typical of today’s generation of alternative spring breakers, says the program director of Break Away, which helps match participating colleges with eager charities. “The ones we meet have tremendous motivation and interest in social justice and the desire to make an impact,” she said. Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, student participation has risen 10 to 15 percent each year. Most, if not all, major schools in FL now have formal alternative break programs, and many pay much of the cost of the trips. Several University of Central Florida students spent last week in San Juan, Puerto Rico, working with homeless dogs at an overwhelmed shelter. They paid $300 for the week, for which they put in some hard labor. At the University of Florida, students this year could choose from nearly two dozen projects - including protecting marine life, educating communities about HIV and AIDS, and laboring alongside impoverished farms workers.