For this year's 4th of July, I headed over to Downtown Sanford to see the fireworks. I really like the location on Lake Monroe, and the event has definitely grown quite a bit since I last watched the fireworks in Sanford several years ago. It was a good show, although the fireworks over the river in Deland looked much more impressive and went on for several more minutes after Sanford's show had ended.
In honor of today being Fat Tuesday, I borrowed a restaurant review of the Crooked Bayou in Downtown Orlando from my Watch Me Eat Blog. With Jockamos out of business, Crooked Bayou is the only restaurant that I know of in the Central Florida area that specifically specializes in Cajun food. Crooked Bayou is a tiny little place on Central Blvd that seemed to be more bar than restaurant. They had some cool stuff in the tiny space like a big tree made out of bent rebar in the center of the restaurant and a window to an old painted advertisement on the neighboring brick building.
I started by ordering a cup of Jambalaya. It was really good, with plenty of chicken, andouille sausage, and shrimp along with the rice. According to Wikipedia, this was Creole Jambalaya since it was tomato based rather than Cajun Jambalaya that is tomato free. It was definitely some of the best Jambalaya that I've eaten.
I ordered a Cajun Crawfish Po'boy to follow the Jambalaya. The crawfish were tiny, but the sandwich was still really tasty. There was plenty of seasoning on the crawfish, which were placed on pressed french bread with lettuce, tomato, and tarter sauce. A pickle and potato chips were served with the sandwich.
The Vue in Downtown Orlando has a rather interesting light show on what appears to be the building's stairs. I imagine this must get old quick if you live in one of the condos with windows next to the lights...
I happened to pay a visit to Celebration, FL when I decided to eat at the Market Street Cafe. In December, Disney's planned community has some interesting stuff downtown. This includes snow machines that pump out fake snow every hour and nice Christmas decorations all over town. These are pictures taken in Celebration from that evening:
This is a video of some of the fake snow in Downtown Celebration, followed by a house with Christmas lights synchronized with Christmas music and music from Epcot's Illuminations show.
Florida doesn't have too many ornate cathedrals that I'm aware of. As far as I know, there is nothing like Washington DC's National Cathedral or some of New York's cathedrals. I'm always interested in these church's ornate and sometimes over the top architecture, so I was a bit surprised when I stumbled upon the Cathedral Church of St. Luke on my last visit to Downtown Orlando. Somehow I never noticed this church, with it's ornate stone carvings and stained glass windows. As goes with most buildings like this, I'm sure there are lots of architectural details that I didn't see on my walk past on my way to the Crooked Bayou. I think I'll need to return and take a closer look, and maybe see something else that I never noticed in Downtown Orlando...
On my last trip through Downtown Orlando, I came across this demolished building on Orange Ave. A demolished building usually isn't much to see, but in this case they left the foundation, still covered with the various types of tiles that were in each room. It's kind of cool to see the floor plan of an old building that no longer exists.
Here's a view of the new 55 West from the empty lot.
After Tropical Storm Fay dumped huge amounts of rain over Florida, there was lots of flooding. Little lakes in city parks overflowed to very high levels, so you can imagine how high a large body of water overflowed. For example, along the St. Johns River. The flooding was seems to be the worst where the river opens up into Lake Monroe. These pictures were taken on September 1, 2008 in Downtown Sanford along the shore of the lake:
Wood Storks were exploring their new watery shoreline.
The road leading into the Sanford Marina was completely underwater. That didn't seem to stop people from driving to the restaurants at the end of the road or riding bicycles to their favorite fishing spots.
There was a news truck there covering the flooding.
At the time that these pictures were taken, the St. Johns River still hadn't crested. It would still be another week before the river reached it's highest point and the water would start to recede.
Previously, a creepy statue near Lake Eola in Downtown Orlando was discussed here. It wasn't the only creepy statue in the city though...
This giant rabbit was located in an atrium outside of the Bank of America Building on Orange Ave. While the previous artwork discussed was creepy, this rabbit looks like he is out of a horror movie. It was a mystery to me why this monster rabbit was in front of a bank until my last visit to Downtown. Much to my dismay, the rabbit was gone. Next to where the rabbit was located is a restaurant called Harvey's Bistro. Check out their logo on the green awning... 
I'm guessing Harvey's Bistro was responsible for installing the monster bunny. I have no idea what happened to the rabbit, but it will be missed. No matter how creepy it was, the rabbit was one of my favorite bits of public art in Downtown Orlando...
The Paramount is one of Downtown Orlando's newest skyscrapers. It's on Central Blvd, right across the street from Lake Eola. They did something correct in this building by opening up the first big supermarket downtown. Now people living downtown don't actually have to leave downtown in order to go food shopping. The only deterrent may be this creepy statue placed in front of the entrance to the Publix...
She's very random, very creepy, and whoever decided to place this statue here made a good choice...
Public School Number Four is an abandoned building in Downtown Jacksonville that has always intrigued me. The former school has wonderful brick architecture and a columned entrance. It has been abandoned for as long as I can remember and like any long abandoned building, it has gained some ghost stories. Books have nicknamed the building as "The Devil's School" to go along with the associated ghost stories.
I don't know the whole history behind the school and why it was let to rot for decades, but my guess it had something to do with I-95 being twenty feet away from the front entrance. It's still a shame to let such a beautiful (and probably historic) building rot away, although I probably wouldn't be inclined to take pictures when riding by if the school wasn't in it's current state...
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