Strawberry Festival

The last blog I wrote was Wednesday, when I posted a gain in weight. Well, going to the Plant City Strawberry Festival yesterday is NOT going to help me lose that weight. LOL! I know I'm going to be posting another whopping gain come this Wednesday.

The festival was a lot of fun. It didn't cover as large an area as we had expected (I think Mark and Rudy were thinking "Maryland State Fair" size), but it had everything I expected to see at a local Strawberry Festival, with one exception. We expected to eat fresh strawberries, as much and as often as we wanted. NOPE! Didn't happen. You could buy them in HUGE quantities. If they had sold them washed and in small quantities, we probably would have bought a bag and munched on them. Sadly, they were only sold unwashed and in huge flats.

Still, I found plenty to eat! We were going to have lunch there, so this is what I ate and pretended it was lunch: a fudge puppy (chocolate-covered waffle on a stick with nuts and whipped cream), make-your-own strawberry shortcake, fried string beans, and vanilla soft serve ice cream with chopped strawberries. YUP! That was lunch. Hahahhaha! OY!

A new friend of mine on FB posted yesterday that the "little white dude on my shoulder was missing today, so the little red dude was telling me what to do." When I saw that post, I cracked up. Clearly my little white dude had left with hers, and my little red dude was telling me to eat all those things at the festival!

In addition to food, there were the usual country fair types of activities: craft and cooking contests, showing of livestock for prizes, tons of food, rides for adults and kids, some interesting performances, live concerts for free and for pay. This Plant City Strawberry Festival is a BIG deal in this central Florida area. They attract some big name performers and have a fairly large, outdoor amphitheater. Last night was Demi Lovato. Other performers include greats like the Gatlin Brothers, Crystal Gayle, and Reba McEntire. We aren't going to go to any of the big, night time headliners, but the prices were great. $50 to see Reba is amazing. Maybe next year...

What we did see were pig races and a sea lion show! They were so much fun. We wanted to see the Lumberjills show, but we never got around to it. We listened to some native Americans playing flutes and guitars with dancers. That was excellent. There were many other bands performing for free in a tent, but we never even got into that tent. There was a lot to do, but it was pretty hot. We arrived around 11 a.m. and left about 3 p.m., totally worn out but happy.

Tonight, Mark and I are going to have quite a special experience. Because we are Disney annual passholders, we were able to get tickets to a very special preview showing of their new movie, John Carter, tonight at 6 p.m. at the Disney Hollywood Studios. It is going to be a very cool experience.