Downtown Winter Garden, FL

Just a quick note to say that we had a very pleasant afternoon walking the main drag of a local town, Winter Garden. Several years ago Orange County developed old railroad rightaway into the West Orange Trail. It runs right through the center of Plant Street and has provided a good bit of visitor traffic, especially on weekends. Winter Garden recognized the potential this provides and upgraded Plant Street in this area to have a landscaped park and gazebo in the center of the road. The road itself was paved with bricks and this now presents a nice walking destination as well as attractive biking venue. Storefronts along this stretch have been upgraded and now there are several restaurants, about four ice cream parlors, two bike shops, and an eclectic assortment of other businesses.

We stuck to ice cream (hey, it was hot!)   and a visit to the railroad museum. The museum is free and has quite a collection of railroad memorabilia and items specific to the railroad history in Central Florida. In particular is a video showing footage shot from the train that passed through Winter Garden and a great deal of pre-Disney Central Florida.

It was a fun diversion. Who says you have to travel long distances to find interesting new places?

Holopaw, FL

Twenty-one jeeps showed up for our June Wednesday trail ride. Our riding area today was the Suburban Estates are near Holopaw, FL. Do you recall back in the day when Ed McMahan of Jonny Carson fame was caught up in a Florida land swindle operation? You know, worthless swampland, no utilities? Well, the place still exists and still had no utilities. There are many residents, though, and as our guest resident proclaimed it is “like the wild west”. The homesteads are not much more than shacks, with the better among them consisting of old trailers. Entry is through a locked gate and even the county sheriff cannot gain entry since it is all “private property”. When issues arise, and the often do, the sheriff or ambulance must wait at the gate for the calling resident to come and let him in. At that they go no further than the open field as you first enter the gate since most of the “roads” are not much more than trails. When Bob, our host, caught a young thief they trussed him up like a pig and carried him several miles out to the gate on the back of an ATV. He got banged up pretty bad bouncing around back there, but no one cared much.  He will likely not be back. Since most of the resident’s arsenals would make most any SWAT team jealous I have no clue why he tried anything in the first place. Bob lead the ride to ensure that we stayed out of the real dangerous areas. Not dangerous terrain. Dangerous humans.

As I have mentioned in the past, Barbara and I prefer drier rides, but we got more experience in dealing with mud and water. We followed as the lead jeep drove up what turned out to be a dead end canal. We were stuck for a bit as we tried an eight-point turn around in the narrow canal, but finally managed to get moving again under our own power. Water at times was up to the door sill.

Returning from dead end canal

Bob’s weekend hideaway consisted of two fifth-wheel travel trailers side by side under a pole barn. There was a patio area between the trailers and we sought shelter there when the rains came during our lunch break. Thanks Bob, for the chance to stay dry.

After lunch we watched other members blast through mud holes. I still fail to see the attraction of this. It just results in broken jeeps and a hell of a clean up job.

We had the GoPro video camera along for the first time. I think we are starting to figure out how to use it. Getting the videos here to share is another story, but I will when I figure it out.