A Different Side of Florida

Even though I typically blog about life in Celebration, we're really just one miniscule spec on America's wang (Homer Simpson's name for the Sunshine State). All kidding aside, there's a lot more to Florida than Disney World, Miami, Daytona Beach, the Kennedy Space Center, and the other big tourist areas/attractions that people typically associate with us.

Now that Figment, my horse, is here, I am becoming well acquainted with a different side of Florida. It's a side that is disappearing all too rapidly...a side dotted with cattle pastures and orange groves. As I drive to the barn, I pass through the gaudy 192 tourist corridor and weave my way through road construction where 27 is being widened to accommodate the strip malls and subdivisions springing up like weeds on either side. Here and there, a bedraggled orange tree speaks of the not-so-distant past when its brethern once dotted the landscape in military rows. Now, there is Walgreens, CVS, and Wal-Mart, plus Taco Bell, Burger King, Wendy's, and most of the other fast food Big Names.

But once I turn off 27, I only have to go a few miles before the scenery changes drastically. Suddenly I'm in the midst of dense copses of trees, broken occasionally by a pasture where cattle lazily graze. There are plenty of horses, too, and groves that still actively produce fruit. There are pristine lakes surrounded by open green spaces, not "lakefront" subdivisions with cookie cutter houses.

The barn where I board Figment is on a bona-fide dirt road. Hopefully it won't be developed for a long, long time...I suspect it will be a few years at least, as there is no easy way to get there. A state park is right across the street, and it's the kind of place where you might see a wild boar rooting along the riding trails or a baby gator sunning itself on a log.

Even though we moved to Florida primarily to be close to Disney World, and even though I love Celebration and find its high density a comforting reminder of my Chicago roots, I love the fact that another world is just a 45 minute drive away. It feels so renewing for me to rediscover the Old Florida whenever I visit the barn. It's heaven to saddle up Figment and trot through an orange grove or weave along the state park trails. I love the crowded, crazy atmosphere of Disney World, but riding in the country fulfills a deeper, more basic need.

I used to feel it when my husband and I would visit Woodside Ranch, a dude ranch in the wilds of Wisconsin. It's not too far away from Wisconsin Dells, a tourist area with a main strip that looks like 192 on steroids. We loved to visit the Dells twice a year, reveling in the restaurants, water parks, and thrill-ride attractions. Woodside was only a few exits down the expressway, but it might as well have been on another planet.

I remember standing outside the bunkhouse one night, looking up at the stars. They sparkled like diamonds on a sky of black velvet. No other light was visible, save the soft glow from the windows of the bunkhouse and a lone streetlight on the driveway. There were no cars on the lonely road in front and no sounds, save for the distant nicker of horses in the barn across the street. Standing there, soaking it in, the peace somehow filled a deep well in my soul that I hadn't even known was empty.

It's been many years since I've been to Wisconsin, but now I've found my peaceful place in Florida, and I have my horse to share it with.

I guess that the easiest way to explain it would be to share the lyrics of one of my favorite songs, "Out in the Country" by Three Dog Night:

Whenever I need to leave it all behind
Or feel the need to get away
I find a quiet place, far from the human race
Out in the country.

Before the breathing air is gone
Before the sun is just a bright spot in the night time
Out where the rivers like to run
I stand alone
And take back something worth remembering.

Whenever I feel them closing in on me
Or need a bit of room to move
When life becomes too fast, I find relief at last
Out in the country.

Before the breathing air is gone
Before the sun is just a bright spot in the night time
Out where the rivers like to run
I stand alone
And take back something worth remembering.

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