We are excited to leave today for Plant City to go to the Lynyrd Skynyrd concert at the Strawberry Festival.
Kip grabbed his pedal bike and went to Enterprise to get a rental car and I walked up to the Stuart Farmer's Market. I wandered around, bought a few items, and met Kip back in the parking lot.
After about a 3-hour drive, we pulled into Plant City, paid our $10 to park at a church, and walked down the main drag to the festival. We were shocked how many people were already wandering around. It was packed. We were wondering if it would be like the Anoka County Fair or the State Fair, and it is definitely like a smaller State Fair. People watching was a riot!
As you would guess, there was no limit as to what you could get with strawberries in it: malts, shortcake, kettle corn, cheesecake, funnel cakes, pie, etc., and of course, just cartons and cartons of regular strawberries.
After a few hours, our friends Jeff and Laura and their grandson, Hayden, arrived and we walked around with them for a while. They wanted to go back to their RV for a while, and we told them we would meet up later.
Kip wanted a t-shirt, so we made sure we were over by the gate in time to get in line.
The concert was great, as always. The last founding member of the band passed away last Sunday, Gary Rossington, and they had a tribute to him during the show. Very sad.
After the concert we were scoping out what we could eat and ended up with french fries, cotton candy, and taffy. Nice combination, huh? We drove a few miles to the hotel and we were sleeping fairly quickly. We need to get the rental car back at a decent time, but, you know Kip.... always a plan B (or more) included in the Plan A.
He wants to drive to Labelle to pick up our truck (since I can't ride my pedal bike anymore), then we both drive back to drop off the rental car, and then drive the truck back to the marina. I have to say, probably a really good idea under the circumstances, but it is always interesting trying to figure out Kip's planning brain.
We took mostly back roads on the way back (which is much more relaxing) and made a few pit stops to look at boat launch sites and marinas. The drive to Stuart is lovely with trees canopying over the road.
We actually found a parking spot for the truck (which was nice) and walked back to the marina. we have to take the dinghy back to the boat, and the wind is howling at 40 mph and the waves are huge. We have two heavy backpacks, a box of strawberries, mail, and a woman who can't use her left arm to hang on!
We started out with me sitting in the front but had to turn around because the waves were too much. Kip put all of our items in the front of the dinghy and had me sit on the floor in the back. It was a very rough, wet ride back to the mooring ball, but it went fine thanks to Kip. The weather was gloomy, and a storm eventually went through with rain and thunder.
Kip took a nap and we had chicken, strawberries, and SpaghettiOs with hot dogs, and bread for supper! Can you tell we have to make a grocery trip tomorrow? 😧 The good news is we can take the truck and don't have to bike and carry heavy backpacks back to the marina.
We are thankful for the nice weekend and that we had the chance to get out and explore.
So glad you had a good time! Those waves looked brutal though!
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