Ain’t that just the Berries?

Thursday, February 28, 2014

Today is the opening day for the famous Strawberry Festival in Plant City, Florida.  Plant City is known for its wonderful strawberries, and celebrates with a festival each year, complete with a queen, entertainment, rides, food, etc. 

Our trip to the Festival was accompanied by a little rain…ain’t that just the berries?  But, we had practice sitting in the rain in Daytona, and were dressed appropriately, so the rain didn’t dampen our visit.

On the way to the Festival, we stopped at Parksdale Farm, known for its strawberry shortcake.  They had a menu with 9 different selections for strawberry shortcake!  We chose #2, which included shortcake, strawberries, ice cream and lots of topping!  And, we ate in the “Garden of Eatin”! Delicious!!!

 

Florida is the second largest strawberry producing state in the nation, growing over 9,000 acres of strawberries.  At the Strawberry Festival, we learned a lot about how the strawberries are planted and grown.  You could buy anything strawberry…milkshakes, cookies, jelly, jam, chocolate covered strawberries, strawberry pie, fudge, etc.  Also, there were strawberry hats, tshirts, earrings, bracelets, handbags, etc.  (All we bought were strawberries)  We also saw Mr. Strawberry Man walking around the grounds!

We had tickets for the Styx concert, which turned out to be a great concert, in spite of the sprinkles that came up during the performance.  The audience was made up of both young and old (old is our age which is the age of the band), and it was a lively crowd, since everyone knew the words to the songs.  They have a lot of great songs… “Come Sail Away”, “Lady”, and lots of others.  It was fun to see the bald heads and gray hairs rockin’!  The hits were from the 70’s and 80’s, and have lasted all these years.  The band sounded good, especially considering the number of years they’ve been around!

It was great spending time at the Strawberry Fest!