Monthly Archives: October 2018

2018 Trip 5: Orlando and Palm Beach: Oct. 30

Posted on October 31, 2018 by Ed Heimel and Chris Klejbuk, MN travel bloggers; ckeh72@comcast.net

Enjoying lunch at Canaveral National Seashore

Kissimmee, Oct. 31

Tuesday was a return to nature. To be honest, much of that was done through driving rather than walking. We left the Orlando area and drove over towards the Kennedy Space Center, to visit Canaveral National Seashore and Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Both of these gems of public land resources were created through excess land purchased for the Kennedy Space Center.

Sea turtle shells at Apollo Beach Visitor Center, Canaveral National Seashore

Our first stop was at the Apollo Beach visitors center for Canaveral National Seashore. At Apollo Beach, we learned that the seashore provides a critical habitat for the nesting of sea turtles, including the very large leather back and loggerhead turtles. The turtles only return here from their sea voyages for the female to lay her eggs. The male never returns to land. It is rare to see the females as they lay their eggs during a 1 to 2 hour process at night and then return to sea. We forgot to ask how the male and female turtles meet at sea in order to mate.

Birds of Canaveral National Seashore

Our drive included stops at several locations, observing the combined saltwater to freshwater habitat since the national seashore covers both the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian River Intercoastal Waterway. We were able to observe several dolphins but no manatees. Our lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and grapes was enjoyed sitting on a bench; watching the ocean waves and the raptors flying directly over our heads. Chris, in particular, enjoyed the sun’s rays beating down on her, helping to dissipate the last effects of her cold.

The Apollo Beach section of Canaveral National Seashore is at the northern tip of the seashore and located on a long spit of land. We had to retrace our steps in order to get back to the mainland and drive down to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is run by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the national seashore is run by the National Park Service. The staff at the refuge we’re happy to discuss with us other locations around the country that we and they have visited.

Birds of Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

The refuge was actually a return visit for us. Our very first trip in retirement, in January 2013, we traveled with my two sisters and brother-in-law to watch a championship football game involving my nephew. My younger sister was enthralled with Merritt Island refuge and we had to cut short our time here in order to make it to Daytona before the football game began. That visit in 2013 had a greater profusion and variety of waterfowl and alligators throughout the refuge. During this trip, we saw more ones, twos, and fews than we did bunches of birds. Thanks to Chris’s sharp eyes, we did eventually see one alligator.

Dinner was back in Kissimmee at an Olive Garden. We brought left-overs back to VV for dinner tonight.

Our one gator on this trip so far

Ed and Chris. Oct. 31.

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2018 Trip 5: Orlando and Palm Beach, Oct. 27-29

Posted on October 29, 2018 by Ed Heimel and Chris Klejbuk, MN travel bloggers; ckeh72@comcast.net

Rollins College in Winter Park, FL

Kissimmee, FL October 29

We have been to Orlando and Florida so frequently that I can visualize many of our highway exits in advance. The flight down on Saturday was easy but Chris had the window seat for a change. My cold and cough were practically gone but her hacking was still quite noticeable. She got the window seat away from people. Her inability to talk to her neighbor was mitigated since the aisle seat was only occupied for one-half of the flight anyway and we both watched inane movies that distracted us.

For the first five nights we are staying at Vacation Village at Parkway, one of many timeshares in the area. It is big; 20 buildings with 7 to 13 stories each. We have found it clean and pleasant with the usual amenities. VV at Parkway was chosen primarily because it is on the south side of Orlando and we will be driving south to Palm Beach Thursday.

Sunday was spent in the Winter Park area. In this part of Florida there are four “Winter” towns; Winter Park, Winter Haven, Winter Springs, and Winter Garden. All are in the 30-40 thousand population range but Winter Park is a bit older and more established as a town. We had been to the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum in Winter Park previously. Northern business magnates established the town in the late 1800s; with the arrival of the railroad the little town was prospering. The downtown area along a lake was active with people eating at cafes and strolling along the lake front. Today our first stop was for a one hour boat tour of three of the inter-connected lakes in the area.

Our boat excursion was with Scenic Boat Tours. On the tour, we found it was the oldest operating attraction in the state of Florida, beginning in 1938. The boats are comfortable, not fancy; basically stripped down pontoon boats with pleasant seats but no canopies. This tour covers Lake Virginia, Lake Osceola, and Lake Maitland. There are numerous spring-fed interconnected lakes in this part of Florida (Winter Haven has over 50) and the three lakes we rode on are home to expensive mansions.

Scenic Tour boats going through one of the canals

There are narrow canals that provide the waterway connection; creeks that had been previously used by lumber companies to ship timber to a sawmill on Lake Virginia. During the Depression, WPA crews widened and improved the banks so the canals are kept boat accessible year around. At least most of the time; our driver indicated two years ago during a dry time, the canals were not deep enough.

The canals operate on a chance basis. They are basically wide enough for one boat and you hope you do not encounter another boat coming at you before you complete the one-two block long winding canal. The tour operates 6-7 boats who go through the canal about 250 feet apart and the last one through tells any waiting traffic that it is clear to proceed. Our boat did encounter two paddelboarders working feverishly to get out of the canal before we caught up to them.

Examples of homes along the lakes in Winter Park and Maitland FL

The tour guide talks extensively of the homes along the shores. Stories such as: the home of the NBA star whose home when sold had to be renovated to lower the height of the light switches, counters, and toilets; the home of a Cortland NY 1800s lumber baron who in order to convince his wife to come down to Florida built an exact replica of their Cortland home; and the largest home on the chain of lakes at 30,000 square feet.

We saw the water side of Rollins College, a small liberal arts college with an endowment of $300 million, in the top ten percent of colleges. The lake has buoys marking the slalom practice area for the water skiing team. The tour guide extolled the chapel and art museum so we later stopped by there also.

It was a surprise to us to learn that Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood) went to Rollins. Evidently his family had big bucks from local business operations and after one year at Dartmouth, Fred transferred here. His family bought a lake home for him and his grand piano while he finished the last three years at Rollins. He met his wife here and they wintered in a home along the lake frequently. (He also lived in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh.)

Knowles Chapel at Rollins College in Winter Park, FL

After the tour we visited a few land sites pointed out on the boat tour. The Kraft Azalea Garden is probably a nice site to hold a small wedding but nothing distinctive. The Knowles Memorial Chapel at Rollins College was designed by Ralph Adams Cram who designed more than 75 churches and cathedrals. He declared it his favorite. We were not impressed, it was pleasant but nothing notable. The exterior was more striking with the soft white across the blue sky, the interior dark.

The Cornell Art Museum at Rollins is small. It may have notable acquisitions but few, if any, were on display. There was a special, small, exhibit organized by the Ringling Museum out of Sarasota with several striking paintings under the theme of “Dangerous Women”.

Views along our walk at Mead Botanical Garden

The Mead Botanical Garden was our final stop. It is fall and not much flora was in flowering mode but we had a pleasant walk here. Most of the visitors were with a photography group that was utilizing the grounds for a special outing or with a weekly yoga group.

Sunday dinner was in our timeshare, one way to save money and avoid lines at restaurants in this top visitor destination. Monday we exercised walking throughout VV at Parkway in the morning and spent the afternoon by the pool.

One of the pools at Vacation Village at Parkway, Kissimmee FL

Ed and Chris
October 30, 2018

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2018: Staying Home for Awhile, October

Posted on October 26, 2018 by Ed Heimel and Chris Klejbuk, MN travel bloggers; ckeh72@comcast.net

Headwaters of the mighty Mississippi River at Itasca State Park in MN

Saint Paul, MN October 26

We will be leaving tomorrow for a week’s trip to Florida. We will blog about our travels and adventures in Florida next week so we want to wrap up our fall “close to home” activities.

Minnesota, like many other states in our diverse and beautiful country, has an extensive state park system. There are 76 state parks in Minnesota. Many people, we included, visit state parks that are near to their home and/or have a unique feature. To encourage people to visit all of the Minnesota state parks, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR oversees our state parks) has a program called the Passport Club. A person buys a booklet at a state park and then when they visit a MN state park, the booklet is stamped and dated from that park. In retirement, we decided to see how long it would take us to visit all the parks. We started in April 2015 and got our 74th stamp last October. (Two parks do not have to be visited since they can only be accessed by boat.). We picnicked, hiked and participated in programs at parks we never would have visited except for this passport challenge.

We have decided to complete a second MN State Parks Passport and have added the challenge of doing the Hiker’s Club hike that is identified at each park. These hikes range from 1 mile to 6 miles. We have already visited 9 parks on our road to complete our second passport book.

Itasca State Park

Hiking at Wild River (top), Lake Louise (Chris in pic) and Interstate State Parks in MN

This month we visited Itasca State Park with Ed’s sister Jude. Itasca is the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi River. It begins its 2350 mile journey to the Gulf of Mexico as a small stream flowing out of Lake Itasca where flat rocks and a footbridge have been placed to allow people to walk across the Mississippi. Itasca is the second oldest state park in the nation, after Niagra State Park in New York. The park is home to over 100 lakes and thousands of acres of wetlands and forests. We also visited and hiked at Lake Louise, Interstate and Wild River State Parks this month.

The Nuns’ Bus in Cedar Rapids IA

Have you ever heard of the Nuns on the Bus? The advocacy arm of U.S. women religious (nuns) over the years has criss-crossed the country on a bus tour to talk about targeted political issues. This October a group started in California on a truth tour to talk about the Republicans’ tax policy. They hold town hall meetings, meet with members of Congress, have site visits and rally’s. Last week, they (and their bus) were in Cedar Rapids, Iowa for a town hall meeting on our nations’ recently enacted tax policies. We went down for the meeting, listened to the presentation and joined the small group discussions on what an individual can do (VOTE).

Prior to the evening gathering, we went to the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids. One gallery was a heart wrenching telling of Czechoslovakia during WWI and shortly thereafter. Czechoslovakia no longer exists; divided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. If folks feel depressed about our current political climate, reflect on history, ours and that of other nations.

Returning to St. Paul from Cedar Rapids across IA farm land and along the Mississippi River

We stayed overnight in Cedar Rapids after the nuns’ program and since the next day turned out to be one of our rare (for this year) glorious fall days, we decide to take the long way back to St. Paul through western Wisconsin. We stopped at a wonderful conservation interpretation center in Clayton County, IA and were pleased to discover a new information center that opened this summer along the Great River Road in Genoa, WI by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Mary of the Angels Chapel attached to St. Rose Convent

At the nuns’ program in Cedar Rapids, we met some nuns (Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration) who had come down from LaCrosse, WI. They invited us to stop at their convent, St. Rose Convent, if we had time; we did and were so glad we stopped. We had a tour, with historical commentary, of their chapel (located on the campus of Viterbo University) and their perpetual adoration chapel (a Catholic worship space) that has had uninterrupted prayers being said in it 24/7 since August 1878!

Sandhill cranes at Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge

Last weekend we participated in a bright and early (6:30 a.m.) activity at the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge to watch the morning wake-up of about 9,000 sandhill cranes from their roost to forage in neighboring fields as they fatten up for their flight to Florida. It was 32 degrees out with 20 mph winds; there was no bird watching shelter, so were outside for 2 hours. We have seen 200,000 sandhill cranes in Kearney, Nebraska several years ago so this was a low-key affair but worth it. In an interesting fact (to us, at least) the Kearney sandhill cranes migrate north to Canada from Texas, going to the west of Minnesota. The Minnesota sandhill cranes migrate southeast to Florida. Maybe we will see some of the same birds next week, we did not check to see how long the cranes’ migration journey takes.

We continued this month our volunteer work with the Bell Museum of Natural History and Ed with the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, including the annual volunteer dinner where Ed received a National Park Service backpack for exceeding 750 cumulative hours of service.

Did we mention to VOTE on November 6?!

Fall in St. Paul, two days apart

Chris and Ed
October 26

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2018: Staying Home for Awhile, September

Posted on October 1, 2018 by Ed Heimel and Chris Klejbuk, MN travel bloggers; ckeh72@comcast.net

Lake Superior sunset

October 1, 2018

We know that September has only 30 days, but did this past month just seem to fly by for you? It did for us. Some time at the North Shore, a mini getaway to Minneapolis and celebrating old and new “friends” had us busy for most of September.

Fun at our cabin on Lake Superior

After saying good-bye to Deb and Rebecca as they returned home to the Boston area, we picked up Chris’ sister Kathy and headed up to the North Shore. We stayed at a “mom and pop” cabin lodging in Little Marais, right at the edge of the mighty Lake Superior. This was our 4th time at this cabin and Ed noticed that the shoreline seemed “higher” than last year. In talking with Dean (the “pop”), Ed learned that in the fall of 2017, the shoreline at the cabins at Little Marais experienced a battering of 30 foot waves that washed away some of the shoreline. In the spring, as part of the restoration from the damage, they decided to add more dirt to create a little wall above the rocks.

The first home of the 3M Corporation

One of our regular stops when traveling to the North Shore, the Duluth Rose Garden

The weather was generally quite nice and we were able to enjoy walks and drives in the area. In Two Harbors, we introduced Kathy to the 3M museum. In this small town in 1902, today’s huge conglomerate named 3M (formerly named Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing) had its origins. The museum is small but cute, run by the local town, not the corporation.

Mid-month we had an urgent request from an Evergreener from North Carolina asking if she could spend a week with us to flee from Hurricane Florence. She had stayed with us in August and has 2 sisters in the Minneapolis area; however, both have dogs and she is allergic to animal fur. We were able to host her for the time and believe her house in Raleigh was not damaged.

The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area closed its coverage at the St. Anthony Falls in Minneapolis at the end of September. Ed did several 6-hour volunteer shifts there throughout the month and had his last shift on 9/28. He locked his keys in the car that day, so Chris enjoyed the nice fall day to bus/light rail to bring over her key set. Ed is continuing his National Park volunteering at the main visitor center in St. Paul on Thursday and both Ed and Chris are volunteer docents on Tuesdays at the Bell Museum.

The Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank

Speaking of Minneapolis, we had an evening fundraiser (for the Mississippi River) to attend in Minneapolis and decided to stay overnight (for 2 nights) to “walk around” town. The day for our exploration was not raining but a bit chilly. However, we tried out new restaurants for breakfast and lunch, had a wonderful tour of the Federal Reserve Bank in Minneapolis and ended the day with 11 miles on our step counter.

The train ride in Osceola WI

We celebrated our 46th wedding anniversary this month by taking in a lovely fall train ride from Osceola, Wisconsin to Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota.

Some animals from the MN Zoo

One of Ed’s National Park volunteers arranged for an outing to the Minnesota Zoo with a talk there by a naturalist on mussels. Mussels originally had been very plentiful in the Mississippi River but had been harvested for years to make buttons. Plastic is now the material of choice for buttons. There are efforts underway to restore the river’s mussel population.

Some of our hikes during September

While it seemed that we had a lot of rainy days in September, there were enough nice fall days to get us walking to area local parks. We are so very, very fortunate to have a fabulous free park system near to us, from right across the street, to right over the bridge, to an easy bike ride, to a short drive. We enjoy water, trees, wildflowers, occasionally animals, and plentiful birds. Sometimes we have been the only car in the parking lot and see no one on our hikes. We bring a picnic lunch and for a short time are able to forget about the conflicts in our country.

Some views on the Nooks and Crannies Tour at MN Landmark Center

Last week, we went to another evening function, the 40th anniversary of the Minnesota Landmark Center. This elaborate old federal building was on the verge of being demolished when two women joined together and began a succesful movement to save, restore and re-use it. Ed’s mom was a volunteer here for numerous years before she died in 2007. Over the years we have attended events here but at its 40th anniversary celebration we were able to take a “Nooks and Crannies” tour. Highlights included the enormous old boiler room, the Elvis memorabilia display kept by the maintenance staff, and an amazing view of the St. Paul skyline from one of the open air towers.

Coon Rapids dam on the Mississippi River

Chris and Ed
Oct. 1, 2018

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