Back in Orlando

On Tuesday Feb 24th we drove up the coast on A1A. We stopped at a beach park near Melbourne for lunch before turning west on Rt 192 and making our way to the Orlando Thousand Trails Campground. We left here almost a month ago to begin our southern Florida adventure. It’s good to be back in one spot for a bit and except for one week out we will be here the rest of our winter stay in Florida.

 After one day of rest; we lead such a hectic life you know, we rode down to the Plant City Strawberry Festival. We had tickets to the Bobby Vinton Concert on the opening day of the festival, which also happened to be senior day. After having to stop every few feet to keep from stepping on old folks who wandered aimlessly into my path and having my feet run over by mobility scooters piloted by centurions who had their drivers licenses lifted years ago, I was ready for teen day!

Now that I think about that, it may not be such a good idea. Fluorescent hair, multiple ear piercings and the well placed tattoo I can tolerate, but aboriginal body piercings and total body tattoos are a bit much. And then there are still a number of idio…adolescents who haven’t gotten beyond the notion that it is fashionable to wear their pants down around their thighs!

 Anyhow, back to the Strawberry Festival. We arrived early so we could tour the festival grounds before the Bobby Vinton show. For the uninitiated, the celebration of the predominant local agriculture is very much like a county fair. 

This fair has more food vendors than I’ve ever seen in one place. They had all the expected carnival food; you can eat pretty much anything you want as long as it’s fried. Some of it is pure novelty like fried butter or Oreo’s but they also offered some really tasty food. We had fried chicken with the coating made of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and it was delicious.

In addition to two headliner stage shows each day, the festival also has free entertainment all day. We stopped in one of the exhibition tents and caught part of the Nathan Osmond Show. He is the son of Alan Osmond who was one of the Osmond Brothers, think Donnie and Marie Osmond. He is good entertainer; his claim to fame is the ability to play any song the audience can think of. 

Bobby Vinton, The 1960’s teen idol has been an entertainer all his life; his present stage show also includes two of his children. He’s aged, like the rest of us, but his voice is still strong. He sang all his old hits, played trumpet, clarinet, saxophone and keyboards, Millie and I enjoyed the performance.

After the show we indulged in the obvious choice for desert, strawberry shortcake! There are only three locations in the fairgrounds that serve the decadent desert; all are non profit fund raisers. We chose the St. Clement Catholic Church Make-Your-Own Shortcake and it was delicious.

Before any green fuzzy stuff could grow on our feet we were on the move again. On Friday we drove across town to Kissimmee; our friend Wayne Wingard from Delaware was staying at the Sherwood Forest RV Resort there. Wayne was batching it, as his wife had to fly home for work, but it was good to see Wayne. We also wanted to see their new RV, a brand new 45 foot motorhome. If you’ve seen pictures of the rigs the NASCAR drivers stay in, that’s what Wayne and MaryAnn have, it’s as big as a Greyhound bus and very luxurious.

When we returned to Thousand Trails our New York friends, Clay and Rebecca Fingar visited us, it’s been a year and it is good to see them again. We have both signed up for a RV Caravan guided tour of the Canadian Maritime Provinces in 2016 so we had lots to talk about. We agreed to meet again in the evening for the campground entertainment.

The George Durham band plays the winter snowbird circuit in Florida and it was our 2^nd time seeing them. As you may remember when I described them last year, I said his keyboard player looks like the church organist, she still does. They are one of the better groups making the circuit; they play a lot of good dance music. We stayed till the end and all had a good time.