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Orlando Christmas: Leu Gardens & Animal Preserve - Day 8
(click once on any photo to display full image) |
In the morning
we visited Leu Gardens. The lobby of the welcome center was decorated for
Christmas. The second photo is a sideview of the Leu House - it was built in
1888 and had numerous owners, but the last owners were the Leus. The gardens
were named after the Leus, who donated the home and surrounding gardens to the
city of Orlando in 1961 under the stipulation that it would be preserved.
We took a tour of the inside of
the house which had furnishings from the early 1900s. Downstairs was the front
entrance, dining room, study, and kitchen (seen respectively in the four photos
below).
Upstairs was the master bedroom
and bath,
a second bedroom, music room
with a sewing machine (can you see the SINGER logo?),
Even though it wasn’t peak
season, the roses in the garden were still pretty.
For us the highlight was the
poinsettias – especially the glitter one (fourth photo below) which we had
never seen before.
Close up of a “yesterday,
today, and tomorrow” flower which blooms in deep violet, turns to light violet,
then white all in 3 days! And that’s us
posing for yet another photograph – this time at the “tunnel of stars”.
These swans were made from
painted tree bark, leaves, and ferns.
Central Florida Animal Preserve
During
our afternoon tour of the Central Florida Animal Preserve we were able to view
Bengal tigers, leopards, cougars, and lions (seen respectively in the photos
below) within 3 feet of their cages. Kelly, our tour guide, explained how they
care for their cats including their feeding and exercise schedules. They are
treated like royalty and are surprisingly quite picky when it comes to eating–
some won’t eat fish, and when it comes to dark meat chicken, some will eat only
eat one type, either legs or thighs, but not both!
Cats spend most of their time
sleeping and aren’t very active. This Bengal tiger below was actually
yawning – not roaring. Click this link to view a video of Adora (the cougar in the photo
above) – she was the only active one and seemed to be playing peek-a-boo with
us from her water basin.
Last Licks
We
had to violate the “no dessert before dinner rule” – it was the only way to get
ice cream at Scoops, our favorite place (and everyone else’s too given the long
line we had to wait in), before it closed! Our last feast together was at the
Chef’s Table. Wei-Shen ordered his favorite appetizer, pan seared foie gras
(duck liver), which Li tried for the first time – while it did have a crispy
sear, he didn’t find the taste to be very distinctive.
The next day we were all up at
4 AM for early morning departures that brought an end to a wonderful time spent
with family and friends. Hopefully we can do it again soon!
