Fountain Square Park

Well, since I was about to have my day (and the rest of my vacation) completely ruined by Tornado's, Severe Thunderstorms, and even potential Flash Floods... all thanks to Tropical Storm Cindy... I was determined to visit a park today, even if it wasn't my intended park, Beech Bend.
Up until this point my whole trip had been in Eastern time, but Bowling Green is just past that, in Central. Something I had overlooked until after checking out of my hotel that morning. Beech Bend wasn't set to open until noon and that was rather frustrating as at 9,10, ....11 am... It was bright and sunny... (with the storms set to hit around 1) But the closer it got to park opening, the more DOOMful the skis became. I wasn't even sure I'd make it to the park at this point... but since I had time to waste (and in this case, even more time!) ....and in case things didn't work out with Beech Bend, I did a quick check on TripAdvisor to see what I could find around Bowling Green so the day wouldn't be a complete waste.... And picked a stop at Fountain Square Park, located in the center of the city.
woo, random adventures!

Downtown Bowling Green was kinda pretty in that old town kind of way.

I liked the buildings around the park, I'm sure they would have looked better if it wasn't so crappy out.

And in the middle of all that, Fountain Square Park.
Designed in 1870.
With the fountain itself, and the 4 statues surrounding it coming 2 years later in 1872.
(and replaced with the current fountain in 1881)

Neat flower planter

The Square and the Fountain within it.

Random sculpture

One of the two memorial entries into the park made from Bowling Green limestone.

 Ceres the goddess of grain

A view looking down the park.
The landscaping here was commissioned to R.L. Sturtevant, a landscape architect from Groton, Massachusetts!
(Who knew I'd find something semi-Massachusetts related in Kentucky.)

Oh hey, and the fountain of Fountain Square!
(now 136 years old)
Featuring Hebe, the goddess of youth.

Also, pretty flowers... and stuff.

Woo.. Uh, Culture Credit!
(also, this would be a semi-rare 'back up' photo for my Photo of the Day / Project365 on Flickr had I not made it to Beech Bend later that afternoon)
 
Also, also... In passing I ended up driving right past a Mellow Mushroom not even knowing they had one here! (and in turn, ended up eating there a few hours later after getting mega-stormed out of Beech Bend)

Uh, adventure.

Celebration Station... because.. uh, +1

So like.... in my quest to ride every coaster I can.. I've seen nothing wrong with driving overnight... or +12 hour nonstop to track down something.. And yet there had been a coaster less than 2 hour from my house and one I'd even seen in person.. but not ridden. I guess it was just laziness on my part. The effort to drive to Clearwater was always just better spent going to the beach or Busch Gardens... So I kept just not getting around to it. In fact, I had at least 4 coaster friends ride it before I ever got around to it, some even by yeeaaarrrrsssss.... Or I would plan to drive out.. but would end up oversleeping or rain would be in the forecast so I wouldn't even try...

Well.. a few years ago my friend Travis and I went kayaking out in the gulf and stayed the night in his hometown of Dunedin just north of Clearwater taking us right past the park and I was able even to see the coaster there running... But since Travis was driving... he refused to let me stop and get my quick ride in. Something about bad childhood memories there or something.. And also being hungry, so I didn't push the issue. Nor did I make the effort to revisit on my own despite having made a handful of visits to the area to visit Clearwater Beach to go swim and stuff... I guess since it was "right there" I kept just putting it off?

Well, after cutting my big summer trip short this year because of a tropical storm and missing out on what should have been upwards of nine more new for me coasters, I decided it was now my time to visit Celebration Station. I was owed this credit.. haha, or something like that.

(But really... We were just gonna spend the afternoon at the beach and then visit Lowry Park Zoo for their Sunset Celebration nighttime event .

 Woo! Celebration Station!

The uh, place... has a handful of kiddie rides, mini golf, Go-Karts, and a neat looking set of Euro-Bungee's... your basic assortment of Family Entertainment Center items packaged with an arcade and pizza party area...

 The ride area has a kiddie swing ride just named... wait for it...

"Swings"

And another typical FEC favorite... Bumper Boats

 Little Drummer Boy teacup type ride.

I've only seen these a few times... I think Wisdom makes it but cant find any reference.

Random Go-Karts... and stuff

The track looked rather basic... But it seemed popular.

 Batting Cages.

 Despite the size of the place, it was well kept and landscaped

 Their Dino themed Mini Golf looked rather fun but since it seemed like it was gonna rain any second... we skipped it.

 Jeff was extremely impressed with the.... uh... sandbox feature

 Back inside the main building was a split level arcade area as well as Laser Tag arena.

 Upstairs I was thrilled to fine a DDR(8) Extreme machine!

But it was out of order. 

(Behind 4th(plus) and 5th, DDR Extreme is probably my favorite) 

But... that wasn't the reason we came here..... 

After getting my FunCard with enough points for a single ride... I was off, to claim my last "local" coaster* 

 Feast your eyes on this bad boy!

 The terrifying Minor Mike!

 The very sophisticated control box.

 Watch out for that 5 foot drop!

(I should be ashamed of myself... but I'm not.)

((Jeff said he was embarrassed for me, while he watched me get my dirty-dirty coaster ride))

Woo.

After what seemed like 10 laps around... I was able to claim my credit... uh. +1!

(#871)

(*The now nearest coaster to me that I've yet to ride is Spin-o-Saurus in Fort Walton Beach, Florida... some 6 hours / 420 miles from where I live!... and I'd have already ridden that too, if not for Tropical Storm Cindy.) 

Wasting time in Indiana

So... in the secondary planing stage of our trip Rob had discovered that the Marion County Fair would be going on while we were in Indiana. Marion, being the county of Indianapolis. Since we only had planned to go to the Zoo and State House that day... a fair stop seemed easy enough. But since the fair didn't open for the day until 5pm... We had some time to kill after visiting the Zoo and walking around downtown Indianapolis. Rob suggested Mini Golf as a way to pass some time, as we had nearly two hours to waste so I did a quick search on my phone and found a few places in the area offering such actives with Greatimes being the highest rated. So uh, off we went.

Greatimes Family Fun Park

Fun Park? That sounds fun!

Inside the main building, a mix of arcade games, food, playgrounds, and ticket booth.

Random arcade games

The indoor playground

Outside they have both adult sized and kid sized go karts

And some bumper boats

But also, also... DUCKS!
(quack 🦆 quack)

And the reason we came here, Mini Golf
Greatimes offers two different courses. 'red' and 'blue'.
We... did the blue side

For the most part... the holes were rather basic... But in a deceptively easy way....

Others were just a pain in the ass.

Stupid bridge hole....

But I guess this is why we came.. right? To mini golf?

Yup
((we both came in... way over par....))

I came here, to Golf.......uh.....poorly.
woo

Wekiwa Springs State Park

So....Visiting Wekiwa Springs State Park had pretty much been on my "To-Do" list since moving to Orlando. And yet, for something so, so close to where I live... it just took me forever for getting around to going. I guess since it is close, I always picked going to other more 'exotic' locations rather than the one basically in my backyard and that's almost unfair to the Springs since it was surprisingly nice and we hit it on a not busy day. (The park is rather notorious for hitting capacity and nightmarish traffic as the Orlando Locals race off to the springs on any given warm day)

The park is centered around the Springs itself and the start of the Wekiva River as well as a few hiking trails in even camp sites. Most people seem to come here to swim... Us included.

In the main swim area there is a cavern that drops down 20 feet or so into the caves as well as a secondary cave entrance away from the main vent and while there are signs all over saying cave diving is prohibited... we saw more than a few people going down into the cavern and caves.

(A quick search on YouTube brings up countless videos that almost make me almost dizzy: Example)  

The Springs also move some 42 million gallons of water into the Wekiva River, daily, and you could really feel it moving you as you would swim over the main vent area. 

While Wekiwa is not terribly far from where I live, I'm still kinda surprised it took me some seven years to visit here. Hopefully this upcoming summer I'll make time to revisit.

So yeah...

 Wekiwa Springs State Park

 Once parking in the lot, you head down these little boardwalks that lead to stairs and other path ways

 into the woods and stuff...

(And don't worry, even past a gift shop!)

 And suddenly, the Springs come into view.

 The State Park contains the head water of the Wekiva River and the focal point is this swimming area, set aside where the springs vent/come out from underground.

 Since its a natural spring, the water temperature stays at 72*s, year round. In the winter it'll feel warm (based off the air temp) and in the summer, it'll feel cool... But we got used to it quick and had a wonderful time in the water.

After swimming around for a while and getting our fill, we headed over to one of the nature trails within the park.

 Woo, nature!

 !!!

I wanna be Bear Aware

(or just even see a bear!)

 No bears were seen here.. But the trail was nice (we did a shorter loop) and did see some animals

Like.....

 (I think) this... Peregrine Falcon

 And an adorable squirrel

 And... this Little Blue Heron?

 Oh, and there was this little nature center... thing.

 ...Where I ended up seeing a bear, kinda.

:3

Uh, woo?