Lake Eola Fountain

I'm glad it's working again...

Ice Skating @ Light Up UCF

I had forgotten how much fun ice skating is! I find all of the outdoor ice skating rinks that pop up every winter all over Central Florida to be kind of funny. It's typically too warm for the ice to stay properly frozen, so there ends up being a puddle of water on half the rink. For example, this was the case at the rink set up at the University of Central Florida seen in the video below:

Cady Way Trail's Tied Arch Bridge

I've been meaning to go bike riding along the Cady Way Trail for a while now, specifically over the bridge crossing 436, but it seems I never have my bicycle when I'm in the area. Recently, I was riding along Colonial Drive and happened to have a unicycle in the car, so I decided to see how far I could get before dark. I started at Fashion Square Mall, not quite knowing exactly where the trail traveled. I eventually made it to the bridge and made it my turn around point. It ended up being my longest ride ever on a unicycle (just over 8 miles), but I had fun!

The bridge over 436 is a basket-handle tied arch bridge. This basically means it's and arch with the roadway suspended by vertical cables. It's a very nice looking bridge that I would rate near the top of my favorite Central Florida pedestrian bridges.

Here's some of the strangely fascinating engineering details of the bridge...



And the view of the car dealers and fast food restaurants below on 436:

I need to come back with a bicycle and ride along the rest of the trail. From what I saw of Cady Way, it's nowhere as nice as Seminole County's trails, but it's still an interesting ride.

Eating at the Crooked Bayou

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.

Light Show on the Vue

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...

Happy 2009

Out of all of the New Years Eve firework shows that I've seen in Florida, nothing beats this one. Disney definitely does fireworks the best...

Mcdonald's Christmas Parade 2008

I went to see the Christmas Parade in Orlando on December 14, 2008. Formerly, this was the Orlando Christmas Parade, but it seemed a corporate sponsor bought the parade with the official name being the Mcdonald's Christmas Parade. The parade circled around Lake Eola and was nice and long.

It started out with the police.




Then Ronald Mcdonald's float.



There were several of these antique cars advertising Cabot Cheese. Cheese is tasty, but it doesn't go with antique cars in my opinion.


These horses were behind a float carrying a bubble machine. The bubbles seemed to be making the horses very nervous.


Johnny Martino from the Godfather movies. He was handing out autographed postcards of himself.


This float was driven all the way to Orlando from a high school in Palm Beach.


Juggler...


A pony pulling a person that seemed to big to be pulled by ponies.


The Geico Gecko...


Followed by the Tijuana Flats Iguana.


Apparently people are scared of clowns. There was a group of clowns in the parade, besides from Ronald Mcdonald. This clown in particular actually left the parade route to chase down somebody with coulrophobia across a little park at the intersection of Magnola and Palmetto. It was great.


The Orlando Fire Department.


This is Sir Gus the Kissing Camel. He travels around with the Shriners to events like this. The Shriners stick a carrot in a volunteer's mouth, and Gus reaches down and takes the carrot, thus kissing the volunteer in the process. I was kissed by Sir Gus once in Downtown Longwood.


And finally, Santa Claus at the end of the parade. Unfortunately, there was no Krampus traveling along with Santa. There should be a few of them in every Christmas parade!

The Cathedral Church of St. Luke

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...

Orlando's Urban Monsters #1

Here's a collection of pictures taken in and around Downtown Orlando of gargoyles, dragons, griffins, green men, and mythical creatures carved into building's architecture.

These griffins are on a building near Orange Ave and Church St.


This nice Chinese Dragon is on the sign for Slingapours in Wall St. Plaza.



A painted Green Man outside of Dandelion Community Cafe just off of Colonial Drive.


This very similar green man is on Orange Ave in College Park.

Demolished Building...

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.

Downtown Ocala's Art Horses

The last time I was in downtown Ocala, I came across these painted horses scattered throughout the center of the city. Although it seems like most cities do an art program like this from time to time, it's still nice to support the local artists that paint whatever the themed object is.



It seems like the newest public art program in Central Florida is Orlando's GuitarTown...

Orlando's Creepy Statues #2

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...

Orlando's Creepy Statues #1

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...

Cheyenne Saloon

As a cross post from my Food Blog, I am posting this here on the Florida Everyone Forgot Blog. Not necessarily for the food, but more for the great building that this restaurant is housed in...

I ate at the newly reopened Cheyenne Saloon on Church Street in Downtown Orlando on July 4th. Back before the Orlando theme parks built their nighttime entertainment complexes (Pleasure Island, Boardwalk, Citywalk, etc), Church Street Station was one of Orlando's most popular attractions. This area was filled with shopping, restaurants, and clubs. There was other types of entertainment here as well, like a Q-ZAR Laser Tag, a haunted house called Terror on Church Street, and a large arcade. At nighttime there would be street performers juggling in the streets, and the area was always packed with people. Slowly, the crowds began to disappear and all of the activity on Church Street began to close. For a while, Church Street was completely dead with almost nothing open in the area that was once bustling with people. Slowly though, it seems to be coming back to life. A skyscraper with a few restaurants called The Plaza has recently opened on the site of the old Bumby Building, where Terror on Church Street once was. Another building called 55 West is almost complete. It looks like this building will have street level shopping as well.

One of the more recent happenings on Church Street was the reopening of the Cheyenne Saloon. This was one of the original clubs on Church Street, and when it reopened with an added restaurant, I had to try it. It is in a wonderful building, and the food was good too.

The restaurant is on the second floor of a western themed club, all in a massive building with great stained glass windows, balconies weaving all around the upper floors, and western paraphernalia all around.

The menu was somewhat small and consisted of all barbecue, but I didn't have a problem with it. I had a pulled pork dinner that was served with a choice of sides. I chose mashed potatoes and collard greens.


A basket of biscuits was brought out first. They came with butter and honey as a topping, but they really didn't need anything and tasted fine the way they were.

My pulled pork came out soon after. The pork itself was good. It wasn't as finely shredded compared to the pulled pork I've gotten elsewhere and was pulled into bite sized chunks instead. It was very tender and was served with barbecue sauce on the side. The mashed potatoes tasted very boring, and definitely needed gravy, or at least some salt. The collard greens were tender and very tasty, compared to the occasions when sometimes collard greens are bitter and stringy instead.

I thought the Cheyenne Saloon had good barbecue, and the building was a nice plus...