florida flora

 

my favorite house

 

Of all the gorgeous houses on the street I typically run on, one of them sticks out to me. It’s just gorgeous, and I love everything about it. It’s my favorite. (The fact that it has a green Mustang parked in front may or may not play into my approval…)

Is it creepy that I spent ten or fifteen minutes taking pictures of a total stranger’s house?



I just love those plants. I’m not sure what they’re called, but they’re my favorite plant in Florida so far.

I also love the fact that the  driveway is done in a patchwork pattern, with big squares of concrete and grass growing in between them. It’s so cool looking.

Yeah… I think this is my new winter-vacation-home dream house.

And just saying… if you have good enough taste to own a green Mustang, you probably have good taste in houses too. So I’m pretty confident that I’d like the inside of the house as much as the outside!

scenes from my running route

 

This photo shoot didn’t go exactly as I planned. The plan was, get up at 6am to a nice clear sky and perfectly still air, walk three miles down to Edgewater Point, and take some early-morning pictures of the piers on the lake and the light filtering through the Spanish moss on the trees.

Well… about the only part of this plan that succeeded was that I got up at 6am. But I got up to overcast skies and just enough breeze to make the lake choppy. Add in the fact that I had only gotten six hours of sleep, and my motivation to go out and make the best of it wasn’t very high! So I crawled back into bed, slept until 9:45am (bliss), and went out later just to take some casual pictures of the houses along my running route. My dreamy 6am shoot will have to come another day.

It’s a very pretty street.

florida, round two

 

Well, I’m here.

I find Florida to be exactly as I left it: warm, muggy, and flat, with regular downpours and thunderstorms. But I’m looking forward to learning what ten months of living here will reveal about the details of Florida’s character and appearance!

My current limited explorations have revealed several interesting tidbits. For example… I had no idea how many tiny reptilian creatures there are here. I don’t know if they’re lizards or geckos or what, but they’re very abundant. As a matter of fact, I found one in my dorm room last night! His name is Bob.

The diversity of flora is also rather impressive. I discovered leafy bushes, moss-covered trees, shrubs with brilliant orange flowers, and some odd cactus-like thing all occupying the same hedge in one area! (Don’t you love my educated-sounding descriptions? I really have no idea what these plants are called.)

It’s such an interesting… different… place. After eighteen and a half years studying my home territory of the Pacific Northwest, it’s going to be fun to learn the ins and outs of a new area. :)

boating

Weekend tubing and skiing in 100+ degree weather: wonderful. It was a great way to say farewell to a lot of friends from church that I won’t be seeing again until Christmastime. And taking pictures of my brothers and my boyfriend was pretty entertaining!


The water was glass and the air was sultry and the food was wonderful. It was perfect.

By the time this has posted, I will (Lord willing) be in Florida, starting a totally new chapter of my life at Bible school. Time flies. I’m going to miss my beautiful Cascade Mountains and Columbia River Gorge… but be on the lookout for some completely new scenery!