Clever Wife Led Clueless Husband ‘Round Scenic Bok Tower Gardens

Bok Tower Gardens | Lake Wales

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Christa seized the day trip wheel and steered a pleasant course through the lush landscape of Bok Tower Gardens near Lake Wales. Discount tickets made our day merry and bright while green foliage and vibrant blooms cured our winter blight.

She’s the DJ, I’m the crapper

I’m the idea man, my wife is the organizer, the pace setter. I’ve no head for planning and only recently come to terms with that reality. But the clues were always there.

History proves her plans sound and mine flush-able and safe for septic tanks.

Most of her ideas are firecrackers, too. Many of my rockets are duds. But, since my head is an endless maelstrom of thoughts, some better than others, I’ll continue plucking them from the churning swirl and convincing my spouse of their ill-found worth.

I’m a plucker. It’s what I do.

Christa discovers Bok Tower Gardens

This trip to Bok Tower Gardens exemplifies why I should yield the logistic duties to my wife to ensure an enjoyable second half of our lives together.

Christa made her discovery and scrounged some discount tickets then kept mum.

I’d not heard of the place but she offered no clues beyond placing tickets under a Beatles magnet above the expired fast food coupons. I opted to stay in the dark to intensify the mystery. The words Bok Tower Gardens evoked a rising pagoda with weeping cherry trees in bloom.

The Fab Four gripped those tickets for months. Soon they were as invisible as the expired Wayback Burger BOGO deals.

The reminder came the night before.

On the road to Lake Wales

The sporty little runabout swept us across Hillsborough County into Polk. I spied Carter’s BBQ in Mulberry and jotted plans for dinner onto my frontal lobe. The siren’s song of smoked swine.

She’s commanding this voyage but I’m initiating a disembark for lunch later.

On the far side of Lake Wales, we turned up Tower Boulevard and wound our way through citrus groves speckled with orange fruit. A coral pink monolith rose from distant treetops: The Singing Tower for which Bok Tower Gardens earns a third of its name.

It was not a pagoda.

Ladies Home Journal editor Edward W. Bok—responsible for me calling “living room” what my grandmother called a “parlor”— intended the Tower Gardens as a sanctuary for birds and humans, alike.

He gifted it to the American people in 1929 and died the next year.

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Bok Tower Gardens

Bok Gardens Hours
Open 365 days a year
8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Last admission at 5:00 p.m.

Pinewood Estate Historic Home Hours
Closed the following dates:
October 29 – November 22, 2018: closed for holiday decorating
January 7 – January 21, 2019: closed for holiday decoration take down
February 14, 2019: Event setup

Operating Hours (except blackout dates above)
Summer — 11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Spring –10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Christmas: –10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Pinewood Estate Historic Home Hours
Closed the following dates:
October 29 – November 22, 2018: closed for holiday decorating
January 7 – January 21, 2019: closed for holiday decoration take down
February 14, 2019: Event setup

Operating Hours (except blackout dates above)
Summer — 11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Spring –10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Christmas: –10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Website

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Getting our bearings

Inside the visitor center we swapped our tickets for a map and some tips for roaming the gardens and the attached Pinewood Estate, for which we already had the separate tickets.

That’s my decision maker—Christa wastes no time but goes for it. I’d have methodically hemmed and hawed over whether it was worth it to include the mansion tour and fretted for weeks over the choice.

The not-to-scale map led us along the paths faster than we expected and we joined the line to tour the mansion.

My jacket was already off and my water bottle lighter.

Pinewood Estate

Charles Austin Buck (a vice president of Bethlehem steel and not to be confused with William E. Bok), built the 7.5 acre Pinewood Estate in the 1930’s.

He christened it “El Retiro” [amazingly that is not El Spanish] and it served as a winter refuge from the Pennsylvania freeze. We ducked out of the warm air into the cool vestibule.

We and several strangers advanced from kitchen to commode where guides in each room regaled us the history, highlights, and purpose of each space.

Christmas ornaments, boughs, and garlands decked the walls and halls and exposed beams. I wished for eggnog and a fiddler a la Fezziwig’s.

After browsing the innards, we strolled the grounds to peep the…outtards.

The home’s Mediterranean Revival reds, browns, and tans harmonized with dark greens and broad leaves of palms and bromeliads flourishing under majestic live oaks in the subtropical winter.

The estate seemed the perfect retreat from Bethlehem blizzards. Our Tampa digs lack the opulence of Pinewood Estate, but recent snow in Lancaster had me particularly empathic.

But they simply must put in a pool.

The Bok Tower Gardens

Christa led us back to the hub of paths and down the spoke leading to the eastern gardens.

The lasting art of visionary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. bustled with life. Birds, bugs, and beasts chattered, tweeted, and buzzed throughout the well-groomed grounds.

Across the Wetland Boardwalk we trod the Wild Garden of native plant species in microcosms of Florida’s various ecosystems. Our legs propelled us under shady oak hammocks, through sunny wet prairies, into odiferous pine forests, around humid wetlands and murky bogs, between dappled flatwoods, and before the edge of a weathered deck where two Adirondack chairs gave them a rest.

My hike might not be necessary after all.

We returned to the path hub and along the westward spoke to the Singing Tower. The scheduled Carillon concert was soon to begin.

We left a sleeping bat hang under a rain shelter to skirt the Sunset Overlook. Florida’s rolling (gasp) hills of natural greenery and cultivated fields mesmerized as far as the earth’s curvature allowed.

The Singing Tower

One o’clock approached and we joined a migration through yet more manicured gardens toward the Singing Tower. Architect Milton B. Medary’s design loomed as a colossal keep 250 feet above twisted oak branches between us and the sun.

We emerged from the canopy at the edge of a lily pond. The tower rippled pink and grey. A stout gilded door at the base lured my eyes and then my legs to the actual structure.

A moat surrounds the tower stocked with carp. The fat fish flocked to my feet, mouths agape like feral cats at a shrimp shack. These fish are scrounging?

Christa beat me to the west side where I found her gazing at one of the many features sculpted into the tower by Lee Oskar Lawrie: A large sundial laid into the stone wall. We deciphered the incised instructions to tell the time:

12:45 p.m. with daylight savings time figured in. Better find seats for the concert.

The Carillon Concert

We found a bench free of snoozing septuagenarians as the Carillon concert commenced.

A blend of Holiday songs dinged and donged, from Appalachian tunes to Basque melodies. So said the program.

Our legs itched to stroll. Realizing we could hear the bells across the entire estate, we decided to see the remaining portions of Bok Tower Gardens to the accompaniment of Christmas hymns and carols.

It was then that I spotted a gumball machine scant with fish food at the Tower’s southeast corner.

The remaining gardens

From the River of Stone we mingled with butterflies and bees in the Pollinator Garden, nibbled at lettuce and mint in the Kitchen Garden, and finally we goofed off in the Hammock Hollow Children’s Garden, where I dangled my satisfied legs for a spell.

We were thoroughly beat and required smoked meat.

Woah. Almost forgot our complimentary chocolate chip cookies. We claimed one each at the cafe and gobbled them up beside a transfixed alligator.

Lake Wales gets heavy

Bok Gardens, the Singing Tower, and the Pinewood Estate shrank in our mirrors as we wound down the hill and through Lake Wales. Christa spotted a sign, declared a change of plans, then fed me directions toward some unknown destination.

Lake Wales has a mystery spot. Or had a mystery spot.

Though proud enough of their gravity hill to post a quality sign and arch, the town buried the magic of Spook Hill under a new layer of macadam, altered shoulders, and cleared trees. Our car failed to coast uphill. The illusion was dead.

Two sighs, a shrug, and a left turn led us out of Lake Wales and some minutes later we pulled into Carter’s BBQ in Mulberry.

Carter’s BBQ

Carter’s slow and low smoked meats have lengthened Mulberry belts since 1999. I verified mine had a spare hole on standby.

We placed our order for a small rib sandwich with collards and cornbread, a pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw and macaroni cheese, hush puppies (daddy), and a wedge of sweet potato pie. Under a fiberglass umbrella we awaited our feast in the warm winter afternoon.

The food

Five meaty bones from the large end of the slab soaked in a golden mustard sauce that seeped through two slices of white bread. Smokey, seaosned meat gave my jaw more work than I’d prefer.

Carter’s made up for a tougher chew with quantity. And that zippy mustard sauce made friends with my tongue. Now I understand the demand for the stuff.

The hushpuppies were light, sweet and crunchy. The suitable collards and reliable cornbread made the sandwich a meal if not a memory and Christa though the same of her sides.

Our hunt for a creamy and rich mac and cheese from a local BBQ shack remains fruitless. This must be how Floridians like it: Baked dry and heavy on the mac, light on the cheese.

The sweet potato pie started with a nice flavor, but a soapy aftertaste left me sour.

Oh, well. Accidents happen to the best. Too bad they were sold out of pound cake.

I ate to contentment and wrapped up the remainder to go. Christa finished her sandwich and with a bit of my ribs tried to coax a timid kitten that peered from a corner of the block house.

The verdict

We both agreed to list this meal on our Not Bad, but Not Bodacious list.

I’ll return some time to see if those ribs get tender. Or maybe for oxtail. You can’t beat their portion to price ratio. And that sauce does linger on the mind.

We raced the sunset home where I put the next day’s breakfast into the fridge.

And in the end…

I really enjoyed this day trip. It wasn’t the peak season for blooming flowers and it’s a fraction of the size of Longwood Gardens. Mostly I enjoyed the mystery of the unknown as Christa set the agenda and led me along the garden path.

To make life simple and more enjoyable I must embrace those skills I do well and reject those I utterly suck at. I get great ideas. I make fairly impractical plans.

Christa nails both. Her keen executive skills guaranteed us a pleasant day trip to Bok Tower Gardens where the Singing Tower, the native and botanical gardens, and Pinewood Estate enriched the spirit and dazzled the senses. Not bad for 25 bucks (half price with coupons).  

And that barbecue satisfied all six for half that price.

My best ideas involve food.

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