Epcot's Flower and Garden Festival

Finally, we headed for Disney today! We spent a good share of the day today at the Flower and Garden Festival being held at Epcot. We didn't get a real great start as we ended up being sent to a parking space w-a-y at the far end of the parking lot.

We're in Discover Row 17 (need to remember that so we can find it again!) --

So here we are at the entrance to Epcot with the Mickey topiary of Fantasia behind us --

The topiaries are the highlights of the Flower and Garden Festival --

Here's Goofy --

The Pixie Hollow Fairy Garden had the more delicate topiaries - and lots of fascinated little girls -

 

 

 

 

I loved the plumes on Captain Hook's hat --

Snow White was cavorting along the edge of the lake with her seven dwarf companions --

Even the lake shore was in bloom with butterflies and flowers. The fun part was all the "flower islands" floating out on the lake --

How about The Lady and The Tramp?

Then there was this very large dragon in front of the Chinese pavilion --

 See how they used blooming bromeliads for the spikes on its back?

Over by the Mexico area, we began to see the orchids --

One of the staff -- excuse me, "cast members" -- told Forry that they had brought in over 3000 orchids for this exhibit --

 

 

 

 

 

I have lots and lots more pictures both of the flowers and some of the rides we went on, but I'll end this blog with "Farmer Mickey and Minnie" in their garden --

And of course, Pluto!

Shopping Trip!

This afternoon, Leslie and I left the fellows at home while we went shopping. This was to be a very serious shoe shopping trip! Leslie badly needed new running shoes --

While I really needed new sandals --

These are Capistranos by Abeo --

Next was a stop at Disney to pick up our passes and to get a baby present. I sure liked this Mickey topiary fountain --

Somewhere along the line we also stopped at the local Godiva Chocolates' shop and picked up some chocolate-covered Oreos for the fellows. After all, it is the 100th Anniversary of the Oreo cookie!

By the time we got back to Auntie Violet, Bill had hulled and sliced a couple of boxes of the strawberries we had gotten yesterday. I sauteed some pork chops, then simmered them in white wine while I fixed a green salad (Leslie says my salads have more "stuff" then salad in them...) with avocados, orange peppers, green onions, palm hearts, artichoke hearts, cucumbers, green peas, tomatoes,spinach and tortilla strips . We ate the chops with some sauteed asparagus, then finished it all off with strawberry shortcake topped with dark chocolate sauce. It's a shame that none of us like to eat...!

Strawberry Festival

Ever since we arrived in Florida, Leslie has been talking about the Strawberry Festival. It runs for ten days in Plant City, so we went today. Plant City is about a forty minute drive from Mouse Mountain RV Park. The Strawberry Festival is a big deal here --

The fairgrounds cover quite a bit of territory, with lots of tents and booths --

What I thought was funny was the juxtaposition of the two main local crops for sale -- onions and strawberries (we came home with some of both)!

The whole idea is to sample all of the good things made from strawberries. For example strawberry milkshakes and strawberry pizza (cookie dough base with cream cheese and then sliced strawberries).

But the main focus was make-it-yourself strawberry shortcake. You have your choice of a biscuit or cake for the base. Then you take your bowl through the line with bowls of strawberries and bowls of whipped cream --

 Add the strawberry sweet tea that Leslie got to go with hers --

But it wasn't ALL strawberries! One of the things we kept hearing about was bacon dipped in CHOCOLATE!

Take some really good thick sliced bacon, fry it crisp, then dip it into melted chocolate. It's hard to believe how good it is!

We looked at all the usual "carnival" food -- deep-fried Twinkies, zucchini and pickles; foot-long corn dogs; snow cones and ice cream, etc. But, we decided that we would head for home (truthfully, Forry and I were tired of walking!) and find something to eat on the way. We ended up at a new-to-us place, 5 Guys, for great hamburgers and fries.

It's Monday...

It's Monday. What more do I need to say?

It got cold enough last night to actually want to pull up the blanket on the bed for the first time in a long time. We had the electric heaters on in the living room as well as one in the bedroom. It only got down to 46, but this IS supposed to be Florida!

I worked on the books today -- I've gotten caught up as far as October now. I'll get those finished up tomorrow or the next day, then we can get started on the ranch ones. We also got bills paid today. Between the computer and the cell phones, we haven't used a stamp and envelope to pay a bill in a long time.

Forry rode my trike up the hill to the other end of the park this afternoon to take the garbage out (it's got a good-sized basket in the back) and came back remarking about how much harder he had to peddle than he does with his bicycle. His bicycle is a ten-speed while the trike is only a three-speed...

Bill smoked a chicken for dinner this afternoon. I've an abundance of avocados, so I made a fresh corn and avocado salad dressed with lime juice. I steamed some butternut squash with a little butter and honey, so we ended up with a feast.

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.

Food Trucks Bazaar!

I am familiar with the Taco trucks -- there are a lot of them in the Northwest, especially in areas with a large number of Hispanics. We like to eat at them and I really like their mini-tostadas. And I've read about the more gourmet food trucks in New York City that people follow on the Internet in order to find their current locations.

But I've never heard of, nor imagined a gathering like the one we sent to this evening in Sanford, a town north of Orlando where Leslie's brother lives.  Every first Saturday of a month, the town hosts a Food Truck Bazaar in a large downtown parking lot. The City Council decided this would be a good thing to attract people to the stores in the downtown area.

There is all kinds of food. The one above is The Twisted Cuban with, of course, Cuban food, while the one below is called Fork in the Road. The slogan says "When you come to a fork in the road, you should stop and eat!" I'm not sure what they were serving -- never got to that one.

There was a l-o-n-g line in front of this one --

Oh, no wonder, they're selling gourmet cupcakes of all kinds!

How about a lobster roll?

This one was the Gastro Truck. Their menu featured things like shepherd's pie.

People had brought lawn chairs and even tables and set up little encampments while they sampled --

Forry had a pulled pork sandwich from a BBQ truck and I bought a "pupusa," a pork stuffed tortilla with a cabbage slaw.

I was intrigued by this menu and had to get us some skewers of chicken hearts -- mm good!

There was a truck with Swedish food, one with crepes, a waffle one, a Vietnamese one and another that was all desserts. That's just the ones I can remember... There was even a gourmet handmade popsicle cart where we got lime mojito popsicles.

Mail and a Costco Run

We got a HUGE box of mail from Daughter MM today. She was not only forwarding magazines, newspapers and mail, but several filled prescriptions that were 90 day supplies. There was also a surprise package of coffee from Guatemala that Daughter Dawn had sent along (she had been there on a ten-day medical mission last month). I had planned to ride my trike up to the office when Bill called me to tell me the mail flag was out, but Leslie was nice and just brought it down.

I spent a good share of the afternoon catching up on the laundry which I hadn't done for over a week. I had three big loads that ended up strung all over Auntie Violet. At least it was cooler today so that we could have the windows open with a breeze to help dry the clothes.

A little after four we went with Bill and Leslie over to make a Costco run. Neither one of us needed a lot of stuff, so we just took one vehicle. I could NOT believe that this Costco had NO blueberries! That and Vitamin D were my reason for going. That left the main purpose of the trip be to have Costco Polish Dogs for supper... Which, of course, made Forry very happy.

As a friend commented on Facebook, you certainly can't beat the price. After all of these years, a Polish Dog and a refillable soft drink is still $1.50! (I always have to chuckle when we are there at noon-time and you see all the businessmen in their white shirts, ties and suits coming in to eat their hot-dog for lunch.)

Another Day

We seem to have settled in a bit here at Mouse Mountain RV Park. The area we are in is mostly filled with fairly permanent residents. The lots we are in are very spacious -- especially compared to the last few parks we have been in. The people next to us have their door and all of their outdoor furniture on the other side of their trailer. Although the little storage unit at the back of the big cement pad is in their space, they are not using any of that area. As a result, we seem to be sprawling over with our bikes and lawn chairs.

The only problem is it has been TOO hot to be outside! The thermometer was reading 94 degrees again today! We had been fairly comfortable with the windows all open and the fans running, but after we went for a bike ride this afternoon to take out the garbage (way at the front of the park), we were so hot we finally capitulated and turned on the air conditioning. 

On the way to the dumpster, I met the FedEx lady. She had the "goodie box" that Brother Pat had sent. The frozen summer sausage was still cold, so we immediately popped it back into the freezer. There was a wonderful fat bag of shelled hazelnuts in the box along with some dry beans and jelly. What a nice care package!

Toward evening, our friends Bill and Leslie stopped by (they had lasted at Disney World until 4 AM this morning...!) and offered to take us out to dinner. We went over to the Boardwalk, a Disney hotel, and a Greek restaurant called Kouzzina. This is the pita bread Leslie ordered as an appetizer for the table. There were six different kinds of toppings -- I think I liked the eggplant one the best, or was it the cucumber/yogurt one?

Then we had salads. This is an endive, dried cranberry and goat cheese one that Forry and I shared --

This was the feta cheese, cucumber, tomato one that Bill and Leslie shared. She says the dressing was scrumptious --

This isn't near as pretty as the plate actually was -- the colors don't show up very well. Forry and I shared this seared pork loin with succotash and polenta. Even sharing it, we brought some home for tomorrow''s lunch! (You can see the empty salad bowl to the left -- we sure didn't leave any...)

The food was incredibly good and the dessert menu looked luscious, but we had absolutely no room. We walked around the Boardwalk for a while watching the itinerant performers (jugglers, sword swallowers, etc.) along the way, before we headed back to the RV park.