On The Meandering Road: November 18, 2015 - Leesburg, Tavares & Eustis, FL

It was 9 am when we were all dressed up and ready to hit the road. Last night Edith made a list of places to visit today. A lot of places, but we will visit few at a time, save the rest for the remainder of the week. The weather is perfect for sightseeing.

First stop was at Lone Oak Cemetery and Masouleum in Leesburg, FL. It is the oldest cemetery in Leesburg. The cemetery has a wealth of history from the beginning through to the present. It has a burial area for babies and pets. There are many old tombstones and some interesting shaped tombstones. Edith realized it will take a long time for her to scout the area to decide which to take pictures of while Erwin waits in the car. She is going to go back there by herself another time.

Next stop was at Mote Morris House that was built in 1826. It is located at 1195 W. Magnolia Street in Leesburg, FL. It is a historic home and was built by Leesburg’s eight-term mayor, Edward H. Mote. It was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The city owns the house now and opens it for public tours two times a month. It was closed when we were there.

We stopped to check out Leesburg’s historic downtown district, but many stores were closed. We continued on to Tavares, FL via US 441.

We parked the Jeep at the edge of Lake Dora. Al’s Sand Bar restaurant was in the back. We walked to the marina, watched the seaplane. There was a brown rabbit grazing the grass, Blue Heron in the water. Great Blue Heron was on the bank. We found a bench, sat down to rest and enjoy the view. It was very breezy.

A perfect spot to sit and enjoy the view of Lake Dora!

It is lunchtime and we were in mood for pizza, looked up for restaurants on www.tripadvisor.com. Oh perfect! Tripadvisor ranked Pastore’s Downtown Pizza at #3 out of 39. It took us 4 minutes to walk to Pastore’s. Guess what?! The lease sign was on the door! CLOSED for good! Very disappointing. Of course, we had to check Tripadvisor again and decided to try Al’s Sand Bar (ranked #1). We walked back to where our Jeep was parked at.

Al’s Sand Bar has a very interesting atmosphere, Caribbean style bar - very cozy. Erwin got fried chicken basket and Edith had enchiladas. The service and foods were great! On top of that, the view of Lake Dora is great!. A great place to relax, order a drink and have something to eat. Their WIFI strength was better than average and was very fast!

We wanted to see Lake Eustis, drove on Lakeshore Drive that is along the side of the lake. Homes around the lake are beautiful, but the homeowners have to walk across the road to their boat docks.

We arrived at Eustis Lake Walk/Ferrano Park for a better view of Lake Eustis. There is a historical building near it, but it was closed.

A guy called Edith over and wanted her to see something in the water. She was not sure what she saw, asked the guy if it was a snake. The guy shook his head ‘yes’. “What kind of snake is it?”, she asked him. “Water moccasin”, he replied. Yikes! Well, we were safe because we were not in the water.

There was an egret in the tall vegetation, several ducks. There was another big snake resting on a piece of a board or something. It was hard to tell what kind of snake it was. Another guy walked by and said it was a Water Moccasin.

Anhinga

It started to rain and we went back in the Jeep, left to go back to the campground. We took County Route 44, a very nice drive. There was a bull with longhorns (we were not sure of the right name for it).

We rested for about an hour and half before we went out again. Edith wanted to go back to Eustis Lake Walk for sunset photography. The sunset time was 5:33 pm and she wanted to be there 30 minutes before.

When we got to Eustis Lake Walk the clouds started to build up almost blocking the sun. Edith hurriedly set up the tripod to catch pictures of the sun. After the first shot a big raindrop fell on Edith’s head and she looked up to be sure if it was the rain or something else. While she was doing that Erwin ran over and told her to get out. The storm was rolling in very fast. We were going to run back to the Jeep, but there is a shelter not too far. Erwin made it safely, but poor Edith. She tried to run as fast as she could, made it to the shelter, but her shirt, hair and jeans were almost wet. The storm lasted for about 20 minutes.