Ice skating in Florida

The RDV Sportsplex in Maitland, Florida offers not only a huge pool for lap and recreational swimming, a massive gym, a coffee shop and hair salon, but also an ice skating rink called the Ice Den. Ice skating in Florida?! Yes, it is actually a thing! I found it while I was looking for places near me to lap swim, and couldn’t resist the delicious irony of going ice skating in Florida.

A Vacation in June

This vacation started on a suede windowsill at the High Grove apartments in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  It arrived when the steam rose more slowly, more lazily than usual off my cup of fresh coffee. Light shuttered through blinds told me not only morning had come: vacation, relaxation, and SUMMER had come at last.
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A short flight to Georgia later, I sat at an oak table pouring tea from a white ceramic pot. The first book that kept me company was A Wrinkle in Time, but it wasn’t my last companion of letters.
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I explored mossy waterfalls and rainy fields full of unripened blackberries: promises of so much more summer.
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A completely bosh tea party under a cloudless sky… The day was so beautiful, even the ants weren’t working. And so both our picnic and the ants were undisturbed.
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Curled up in a quiet coffee-shop, surrounded by dark scarred wood and scents of a thousand brews. Outside the world whirls by, but inside, each grain of hourglass sand falls slowly. So slowly that thoughts can be savored individually… thoroughly.
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And at the very end, I surprised myself with a trip to Jacksonville, Florida, where the seagulls stalk beachgoers’ food in giant gangs and the ocean is warm as blood.
This was literally the only picture I took in the three days I was there.

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Days pass quickly when they’re this beautiful.

Tomorrow I board a plane for Florida, this time further down the coast to Lake Mary near Orlando. I can’t wait to meet this new adventure head-on.

Ah… but memories of June will follow me, and follow me, and follow.

~The Dauntless Princess~

Cheekwood Gardens

Cheekwood Gardens and Art Museum is on the list of things you want to do in Nashville.  The center showcases art year-round and as for the gardens… if they’re this magnificent in the winter, I can only imagine what they’ll be like come spring and summer.