Universal CityWalk -- And The Lorax!

We were NOT going to do anything today! We had had a very heavy rain-storm during the night and I had been up several times shutting windows and pulling in awnings. Forry decreed that it was going to be a quiet contemplative, restful, catch-up day. Then later this afternoon, Bill and Leslie came over. Bill was antsy and wanted to go somewhere. He enticed Forry with the promise of a Margarita and convinced us that we needed to go over to Universal Studio's CityWalk. After all, I had been wanting to check out the Harry Potter merchandise for our grand-kids.

This picture is looking down from the walkway from the parking area at the very colorful Putt-Putt golf course. It looks like it would be a fun place. (I think that purple and green thing on the top of the rocks is a caterpillar...?)

 Sure enough, one of the first places we ran into was --

,

So we left Forry and Bill there while we went to check out the wands and other magical supplies.

Florida flora continues to fascinate me. There were all of these palm trees around the open area between the stores and buildings --

I was trying to figure out why they were green underneath the leaf area at the top of the trunk, then realized that there were ferns growing in between the stumps of the old dead leaves --

After wandering around a bit, we ended up deciding that we would go to Bubba Gump's for supper.

The whole restaurant is themed around the Forrest Gump movie, including the menu --

The portions were huge! This is about half of the tempura shrimp that came with my order. There was another cup filled with french fries as well.

There is a bench outside the restaurant with Forrest Gump's suitcase and a box of chocolates on it and his shoes in front of it. So my Forrest just had to have his picture taken there!

Universal Studios has a big CinePlex Theatre as part of the CityWalk complex. We saw that The Lorax was playing, so decided go see it after we ate. It was an interesting, albeit a bit heavy-handed,  movie -- as are all of the films based on Dr. Seuss books. I really enjoyed the whimsical characters and creativity.

Bill had bought some gourmet cupcakes at the Food Truck Bazaar last night, so we returned to Auntie Violet for dessert while we made plans for the coming week.

More From Key West --

Fort Taylor was not our only stop visited yesterday. We sat down on the beach for a while (we'd read that we might see White Crowned Pigeons there...); watched a sail boat race;

and marveled at all the colors of the water --

We drove through the historical downtown area where we saw these Kapok trees with the incredible buttressed trunks --

Next we headed for the Annual Seafood Festival at Bayview Park. Among the art work for sale at the park were these impressive fish made from driftwood --

The Seafood Festival reminded me of Spokane's Pigout in the Park fall festival in the number of art and food booths. Except that this was a one day event while Spokane's lasts for three days AND they don't sell margaritas in Spokane!

It was a bit of a chilly day, but the park was full and the lines were long. They lined up for boiled shrimp, Stone Crab Claws and fried fish --

This is the lobster dinner we bought and shared. It had coleslaw, rice and black beans, a lemon wedge and clarified butter to go with the rock lobster halves. It was delicious!

I also bought some peel 'n eat shrimp and some Stone Crab Claws to take home for supper. We learned that it is forbidden to sell whole Stone Crabs -- they catch them and remove the claws, then throw them back in the ocean so that the claws will regenerate in 18 months or so. Not so sure how humane that sounds...

This was at another of the booths. This artist had some beautiful, intricate polished cut-out metal work. His lion fish was incredible (only $300) --

And I thought his crabs were fun and loved the whimsical little fish --

I said it was chilly. We had not taken jackets. I mean, we are in Florida after all! It's too bad that I had to purchase this sweatshirt in order to warm up a bit...