Howell Creek at the Cross Seminole Trail

Howell Creek is a Central Florida waterway that starts in Lake Maitland in Winter Park and runs into Lake Jessup in Winter Springs. It mainly runs through suburban neighborhoods, but there is a lovely natural area surrounding Howell Creek as it approaches lake Jessup. This can be seen along the Cross Seminole Trail, namely from the Howell Creek Trestle. This old railroad bridge provides nice views of the creek.

There is a trail that leads down to the waters edge. The water is slow moving and tanic. Unfortunately, it seems that there are so many shallow spots and downed trees that navigating by kayak seems troublesome.

St. Augustine Lighthouse

This blog was almost abandoned, but I'm resurrecting it for now! In over two decades of living in Florida and countless visits to St. Augustine, starting with school field trips and then trips on my own, I had never been to the St. Augustine Lighthouse. Visible from downtown, the St. Augustine Light is located on Anastasia Island and was built in 1874.

One of the fascinating parts of lighthouses to me is always the design of the stairs leading to the top. There seems to be a lot of variation from lighthouse to lighthouse. Some, like the Ponce Inlet lighthouse have staircases that spiral around the walls of the building all the way to the top. Others like the Cape Florida Light in Key Biscayne have variations on the spiral staircases, only based around a central column rather than attached to the walls. On the St. Augustine Light, the stairs spiraled up around half the building, with landings on the other half. I don't ever remember being in a lighthouse with a staircase designed quite like this.

Once the stairs were all climbed, there was a nice view of the top of the lighthouse from the balcony just below.

There were rather impressive and decorative braces holding up the observation platform.

 

View of downtown St. Augustine.

The lighthouse made some nifty looking shadows on the beach.

I liked this house under the lighthouse!

Tampa Streetcars

Amtrak

Train spotting is fun. Decided to get out my camera when I saw this Amtrak approaching Candyland Park in Longwood. Pretty soon we will be seeing commuter trains running along these same tracks!

Clearwater Sunset