Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Unconventional Shopping

Okay. So one of the MANY things I enjoy about living downtown is being able to walk down to a coffee house, get a caffeine kick and then go shopping. However, the shops downtown are not the only cool shopping around. I'm talking about garage sales. Now, don't wrinkle your nose at me because here they are not your typical run-of-the-mill junk, trinkets and trash. Ooooh no. This is Mount Dora. Here you'll find quite a few quality antiques and furniture pieces for sale. In fact, yesterday I was driving up to the grocery store for only bread and milk and ended up coming home with a mint condition 1920's claw foot tub and White & Co. wrought iron sewing table with a marble top. How's that for making purchases off of your grocery list!

Thursday, November 15, 2007

The Navigator

Posted by Picasa

aMAIZEing Maze!




My friend Maranda came up to visit last weekend. The weather was an awesome 70-something-blue-skies-zero-humidity-perfect. So, we decided to hop in my car with the windows down and sunroof open and get lost driving some country roads. I turned on Brooks & Dunn for some "Ha-ooh-hoo, aw, play somethin' country" theme music and off we went.



We took Clayton street East and after a couple of winding turns I didn't recognize the area. Funny, I didn't realize how CLOSE we lived to pasture, farms and wide open spaces. I checked my odometer and we had only gone, ah-um, 5 miles. I stopped a moment to figure out which road to take next while Maranda tipped her sunglasses to the edge of her nose, gazed over the barbed wire fences and surveyed the situation. She was my navigator, and after being outside of downtown for 5 minutes ... we were essentially lost. The horses just glared back at us as if to say, "figures, city slicker."



We cranked up the country music louder and meandered our way back to 441, found Sadler Road and back we went into the country. (I know there is a direct route from downtown to Sadler without taking 441, so I'm going to have to try this drive again.)



After a couple more winding turns we found Long & Scott's Country Market and Corn Maze. Very cool. Never done a live walk-thru maze before. They have maps and decoder glasses and clue stations and all kinds of fun things for kids and families. Maranda and I decided we would divide and conquer. She would be navigator (again) and I would march along ahead with a tall "surrender" flag in case we got in too deep.



At the beginning, it seemed like there were just a lot of people following each other in a line. Not very challenging. Kind of boring. But still cool. Just when we were starting to feel like this thing was easy ... we realized we were lost. Again. But this time we were surrounded by 10' tall corn stalks and had to find our way out. Challenging. We checked our place on the map and realized we had not even gone through the first quarter of this thing. Challenging indeed! We chickened out and found our way out the same way we came in. No need to waste precious time when there is shopping to be done.


Our trip to the country wouldn't be complete without shopping the local farmer's market. Stocked with local vegetables, honey and orange marmalade ... I'll have to remember to come back here just for regular grocery shopping. Much more fun than going to a supermarket.
--Rachelle

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Movie In The Park ...

Last night was one of those moments where I found myself saying, "I love living here!" Brian and I walked home last night from dinner and while we were marching up the hill to our home we saw all kinds of strange blue and purple lights coming from Donnelly Park. As we got closer, we noticed a bunch of people laying on the ground snuggled up in blankets, hovering over hot chocolate and coffee and totally fixated ... on a big screen movie! The flick had just started so we hurried home and grabbed our own blankets and hot beverages and walked back to find our own little spot in the crowd at the outdoor theatre. What a great fall moment with the brisk temperature and clear glittery sky above.

We have lot's of these "Aaah!" moments here in Mount Dora. So, starting January 1st we are going to blog every day to catelogue our experiences and 365 things we love about this town.

--Rachelle