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Chin Family Reunion: Lake Apopka - Day 1 and 2 (click once on any
photo to display full image) |
Newton Park
Wei-Shen has always been an
excellent photographer but within the last few years he has developed a
specific expertise in wildlife photography which is best done at sunrise and
sunset when the wildlife is most active and the
lighting conditions are optimal. So every morning at
the crack of dawn he would take us to one of his various wildlife photography
locations. First up was Newton Park which was also on Lake Apopka and only a 5 minute drive east of our rental house. Sunrise was
captured in the first photo below. The next 2 photos demonstrate the capability
of the telephoto lens. In the first photo of Wei-Shen and I, taken with an
iPhone, note the “small white dot” in the upper right middle part of the sky –
that’s the moon. The next is a photo of the same moon that Wei-Shen took with
his DSLR camera and magnifying lens.
It was quite amazing to watch
the birds swoop down into the lake to catch a fish and then fly away with it to
perch on a tree and feast – that’s an osprey with his catch in the first photo
below. Instead of flying, the anhingas (shown in the
second photo) swim in the lake, dive for their fish, and then flip it in the
air to catch it in their mouth. We didn’t have the fortune of seeing that
happen, but Wei-Shen provided this third photo below from a time when he had.
People can also be fascinating at times – look at this enterprising person who
turned his canoe into a sailboat!
Here’s a green heron in flight
in front of the reeds along the bank of the lake. This eagle photo was taken at
a nest that Wei-Shen monitors right at the corner of Rt 429 and Plant Street.
The parents have been hatching a couple of eaglets here every year for the past
several years.
Rental House
A group photo on the rental house
deck before heading out to lunch - Li’s cousin Pam from Wellington New Zealand
is in the middle.
In
the afternoon we went for a stroll along Lake Eola in downtown Orlando. In the
second photo you can see the cypress trees growing right in the lake!
More Great Eats
Dinner was at a high end restaurant in Winter Garden called Farm to Table –
it had a very small menu with a focus on using local ingredients. Wei-Shen
wanted to eat there not only for the outstanding food but also because it was
right next door to the theater where we had bought us tickets to see the
Dreamgirls musical. We shared a few appetizers (bone marrow, calamari, crab
beignet) and a couple of entrees (braised beef short ribs and pan seared
scallops) amongst everyone. All of the dishes were
wonderful, but the bone marrow was really unique – it is served in the bone –
you scrape it out with a knife and spread it on toasted bread like butter. I
felt like Mikey from that old Life commercial (He won’t eat it. He hates everything.
He likes it!) because everyone sat there watching while I tried it first and
then when they saw that I liked it they all dug in.
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