Gorgeous Gardens, Navy SEALS, & A Friend To The Deaf And Hard Of Hearing

We drove an hour north of our campground in Wauchula, FL to Lake Wales to see Bok Tower Gardens. Larry was there to greet us. We met him at the Association of Late-Deafened Adults convention in 2018. He is a very sweet man and great friend.  He has been part of Bok Tower Gardens for the past 9 years. He took us through the visitor center where we learned about the place.

Replica Of Organ, Bok Tower Gardens, Lake Wales, FL 01/24

Bok Singing Tower Facts: *Groundbreaking Jan 21, 1927 *Completion March 20, 1929 *1320 tons marble, 650 tons coquina, 120 tons brick, 62 tons bells, 45 tons cement, 650 tons sand *205 ft tall *largest bell weighs 22,400 pounds, smallest 16 pounds, total weight of 60 bells is 123,500 pounds (just under 62 tons). We walked through the beautiful gardens. I noticed there are no “stay off the grass” signs in this part of the country. It must be that the grass here is very hardy. (In the Intermountain West, where we are from, you see those signs all over because it is hard to keep grass going.) The plants and trees are placed in a peaceful way, I thought. At the end is Bok Singing Tower. Mr Bok had this made. Every hour music plays from it.

We were fortunate enough to see the screen of the camera in the organ room. There was an intern girl, that Larry knows, getting some sort of instruction from the main organ man. I couldn’t feel the sound waves of the bells at all. I asked Kevin what the bells sound like. He said…”bells”. HA I didn’t know if they were low sounding or tinny. He made me laugh.

El Retiro, Bok Tower Gardens, Lake Wales, FL 01/24

We went to El Retiro, which means “the retreat”. This house is on the national historic registry. Larry does a lot of his work here with the tours and we felt it is his pride and joy. The house had large rooms and for the first time that we have seen in that period, wasn’t gaudy, in my opinion. The layout flowed well and there were several indoor/outdoor places for the family to relax and entertain. I thought it was quite nice. For the size of house, we thought it was surprising Mr Buck (a different person from Mr Bok) had 7-9 servants there. Of course, this was just his winter get away. He was vice president of Bethlehem Steel in PA.

Larry Treated Us To Delicious Lunch, Bok Tower Gardens, Lake Wales, FL 01/24

We wandered through more gardens and then went to the cafe for lunch. Larry treated us; so sweet. I had chicken salad sandwich, Kevin had ham and cheese, and Larry had basil, tomato, cheese sandwich. Rated: Every Time We Come Here. Delicious. We highly recommend anyone in the area to visit https://boktowergardens.org/

Larry At ALDACon (Association Of Late Deafened Adults Convention), 2018

Larry does a lot of advocacy for the deaf and hard of hearing. A few of the areas where he is a hearing loss advocate is with Association of Late-Deafened Adults, Hearing Loss Association of America, MED-EL HearPeers Mentor, and Network of Hearing Assistive Technology Trainers. His tireless work is appreciated by me and so many others. When he knew I was going to visit El Retiro, he actually wrote out “his spiel” that he tells to the visitors and emailed it to me ahead of time. I was able to read it and learn and then understand all about the historic house. It is called “Front Door” and you are welcome to contact him if you are visiting Bok Tower Gardens. Email him at: Willowynd@yahoo.com

Indian River Lagoon, Cocoa, FL 02/24

Another day Kevin had the great idea to drive to Cape Canaveral, Florida and then down the Atlantic Ocean coast. Part of the way is toll roads only and our Uni transponder worked great. He say the balance was low and it was easy to add more money. Didn’t want to pay the non-transponder rate – it can be double. The day was mostly sunny and highs in the high 70s so very comfortable. Fun to see some cruise ships ready for the passengers and it made us miss our times of cruising out of here. We got on A1A and drove south. Along this road we see it is just like the one from St Augustine south – lots of trees and thick bushes with very few sights of the ocean and intercostal water.

We stopped at Indian Harbor Beach park which is nice. A parking lot, bathrooms, picnic tables and shower to wash your feet from sand. We walked to the beach. The sand is like “normal” sand here and not like the sugar-soft sand we found in Sarasota along the Gulf of Mexico. It was neat to see people out walking, several people fishing, and even two surfers. We saw quite a few vehicles with surf boards on them during this drive. 

Navy SEALs Rope, National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum, Fort Pierce, FL 02/24

We continued south on A1A, even when it became a two lane road. As we got to Fort Pierce, we saw a big boat out on the grass. Hum, it must be a nice park. Then we saw more and quickly saw National Navy UDT – SEAL Museum. Kevin got in the turn lane quickly and safely and we pulled in. What a find! We bought our tickets and spend the next 3 hours at this museum…until they closed at 4:00. It is fine, we had pretty much seen everything we wanted. Fort Pierce is the birthplace of the Navy Frogmen. The museum was sort of a timeline but started at current times and worked back. We thought that is a smart idea since things closer are more fresh in our brains.

Black Hawk Down, 1993, National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum, Fort Pierce, FL 02/24

We saw and sat in a Black Hawk. This one Rick Kaiser, the Museum executive director was in during combat missions in Somalia in 1993 (Black Hawk Down).

Why The Laugh? Cute! National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum, Fort Pierce, FL 02/24

There is a picture of a man getting a pin pinned on and the funniest, happiest grin. The sign told us the story: “When asked why he was laughing, Lt Commander Kauffman replied, ‘Because, as Dad pinned it on, he said, ‘Thank the Lord you found a clean shirt.’” LOL We walked around the boats outside and the memorial garden. Even found a Patrick Dolan on the wall. We went inside and watched part of the movie. We asked them to turn on closed captions and they did and it worked. Yes! This place gets an A.

So Thankful For Their Sacrifice! Statue Outside National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum. Fort Pierce, FL 02/24

This campground, Florida SKP Resort in Wauchula, Florida, shows a movie every Tuesday night. We really enjoyed going to them. Cost is $0.50 for the movie and fresh popped popcorn. You can even bring a large tub to put your popcorn in. When we first arrive here, we asked for the closed captions to be turned on the big screen. The guy did and it worked great. Later he told us people were glad I had requested the captions to be turned on because they like being able to read them, too. (This is a 55+ resort.) One evening a man who doesn’t normally do the TV set up walked over and said he had tried for 30 minutes to get the captions on. I thanked him and then asked if he would mind if Kevin tried. He handed Kevin the remote and he were able to get subtitles on for the Netflix movie. People cheered and said Kevin gets in free next week! HAHA I thought that was great. You know, save $0.50. 🙂 Really fun people!

Thursday 02/15/24 We got out of bed at 12:50 a.m. this morning and went outside to stand in the driveway. At 1:09 a.m. SpaceX launched a rocket to the moon! This is the first time since 1972 that the US has gone to the moon. It won’t arrive until Feb 22; isn’t that something? Tells you how far away the moon is. Hard to believe. A private company has made a robot to check out the moon for about 9 days. We could see the rocket and the fire behind it. Soon we saw separation which is cool to see. Looks like an explosion, which I tell Kevin, yes, it kind of is. It was a thrill!