Driving Around Florida Day 5

Today I’m on to Day 5 of our trip around Florida, which took us from nearby Homestead up the central part of the state to Lake Okeechobee. If you have never seen Lake Okeechobee, it is the closest thing there is to one of the Great Lakes only in the Southern U.S., meaning it is huge. But, it is not very deep and it has a levy-like berm built all the way around it, so it’s nearly impossible to see from the road.

If you are new here, as I mentioned in my previous post in Driving Around Florida Day 1, I’m posting a short recap of some of my favorite images on a trip we took to Florida a few weeks ago. If you would like to see the full length post with all the photos you can click through to our Shanty Travelers blog or follow the link specifically for “Day 5” of our trip at A Week Around Florida: Homestead to Okeechobee Day 5.

Driving Lake Okeechobee

We had to keep reminding ourselves this was the Christmas season. Walking around in 78° weather made it feel like anything other than late December, except for all the Christmas lights and decorations everywhere. This impressive tree was in the lobby of our overnight parking space, and I wanted to get the photo to remind me, yes, it was Christmas in South Florida.

It had been a long time since we had driven this part of Florida. All the citrus trees are gone and have been replaced with miles and miles of sugar cane and high tension power lines. These power lines went on, on both sides of the road, for what seemed like over 100 miles. Photographically, I always tend to get those pesky power lines out of the photos, but this was the view for hours.

Some of my other favorite photos of the day included our parking spot for lunch. We stopped at one of the locks along the lake where we were able to drive up on the ridge overlooking the lake. The view was spectacular, but it was basically high-noon so the colors and contrast were harsh for photos.

There was a paraglider doing takeoffs and landings over the lake, and the contrast of his red parachute wing was great since there was not a hint of red anywhere in the frame of the shots.

The next stop was through Orlando and up near Jacksonville where the warm weather ended, abruptly.

A Week in Florida Series

This is series of travel posts originating from our travel site, Shanty Travelers. As I mentioned above, to see the full length post with all the photos you can click through to our Shanty Travelers blog or follow the link specifically for “Day 5” of our trip at A Week Around Florida: Homestead to Okeechobee Day 5.

See you for Day 6 soon (there are 8 days in this series in case you were wondering).