Ah, wedded bliss! At least that is how I feel;
Barbara’s mileage may vary. This is our 8th wedding anniversary and
we celebrated by driving to Lake Wales, FL to have lunch at Chalet Suzanne and
walk the Bok Tower Gardens.
Chalet Suzanne Inn has been around since the 1920’s
and is currently operated by third generation owners. Looking at the photos on
the wall and in the scrapbooks as you enter it has been a must stop for decades
for politicians and celebrities. There is a grass strip on the property and is
a popular fly-in destination. During the Gemini and Apollo space programs the
astronauts would fly over from the cape to eat. The restaurant even canned soup
for the moon missions. It is now available at the restaurant as “Moon Soup”.
The interior of the restaurant certainly shows its heritage
as it expanded in starts over the years. The bar is a quaint dark enclave, and
the “round room” were we dined with a view of the lake had a dark paneled
ceiling so low that I could not stand up straight.
After lunch we drove over to Bok Tower and enjoyed
walking through the gardens while listening to the three o’clock carillon
concert. If you are visiting central Florida this might be worth a stop. Built
in the 1920’s by a Bethlehem Steel industry executive, the gardens and carillon
offer a stark contrast to the central Florida citrus country. They occupy the
highest point of land on the Florida peninsula and the foliage has matured to
provide considerable shade and protection for the sun’s heat.
Barbara has caught on to the geocaching trend and found her first cache while we were walking the grounds.
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