I had warned Barry ahead of time that I wanted to stroll up and down the street and look at the pretty plants and other accessories. It's not as much fun for him, but being that it was my birthday, he humored me, of course. It seemed as if everyone in town was there when we were mid-morning, but at least we didn't have to find a parking place. We walked the 1.5 miles or so from our RV park, which we do weekly for Saturday morning markets anyway. There were so many pretty plants and interesting/fun artwork to see. Here's just a small smattering of what we saw. These metalwork birds were my favorite things I saw besides the plants. I'm kind of regretting not checking the prices now. Barry wanted to buy me a gift for my birthday, and I'd thought I might buy one of the festival t-shirts, but they were so long on me I decided against it. Instead, we bopped into Wheelworks bike shop, conveniently located right on Plant Street. I found these two appropriate t-shirts that I let Barry get for me instead. Teehee! Along with some new bike gloves, I'm very pleased with my birthday gifts. Leave it to us to go to a garden show and end up in a bike shop. We all have our weaknesses, I suppose! After we walked back to Pearl, Barry baked my cake while we watched some of our favorite cooking shows on PBS. We are both especially fond of the Great British Baking Show, and I love Vivian Howard's "A Chef's Life". A little later, we walked downtown for the second time that day for my birthday dinner. We were a little early for our reservation, so we stopped to admire the sidewalk chalk masterpieces competing for cash prizes at Spring Fever in the Garden. There was an incredible amount of talent in evidence in all age ranges, but this one was my very favorite, of course. I don't know who won but hope to find out in this week's local newspaper. We ate at Market to Table in downtown Winter Garden. We'd never been before, but the reviews were very good, so I requested it for my birthday dinner. The restaurant is housed in the Roper Garden building, which I assumed was old and historic, but a little googling revealed that it is only ten years old. It was built in 2008 and was the first LEED-certified green building in Winter Garden. And see the greenhouse on the roof? One very cool thing about this building (and restaurant) is that greens are grown on the rooftop for use by the restaurant! Here's an article about the building and the greenhouse, run by the cleverly named Green Sky Growers. Here is the birthday girl outside the restaurant's patio. I only rarely wear a dress these days, but this was the perfect occasion for one. We chose to sit on the patio as we always prefer to eat al fresco when possible. We hoped the forecast rain would hold off until we were finished. I had my rain jacket with me for the walk back if needed. For our entrees, I had the Florida yellowtail snapper over grits, and Barry had the pork shank with cassoulet. Both were as delicious as they looked, but we would have enjoyed a lot more veggies on the plate. Glad we'd had our salads! We skipped the delicious-sounding desserts at the restaurant since we had cake and gelato waiting back at Pearl. Here's the cake Barry made for me from scratch: dark chocolate with peanut butter cream cheese frosting (he knows I looooooove peanut butter!) and chocolate/peanut butter ganache for the lettering. Oh my!
Mother Nature did her part on my big day too. Although rain threatened, it held off until we were safely back at Pearl after dinner. Raindrops started falling only a short while after we got back. Paisley missed out on her nightly walk as a result, but we humans certainly enjoyed my special day!
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I can't believe we've been wintering here in Winter Garden for the past three years and somehow have never made it inside the Plant Street Market downtown. We've certainly walked and bicycled by hundreds of times, and I always thought it looked interesting -- there's a craft brewery there, for goodness sakes -- but it can be very crowded. We're not fond of crowds so stayed away. We finally decided to give it a try now that so many snowbirds have left the area until next winter, so the crowds would be more local and less touristy. We picked a Wednesday, since this is our usual laundry day and not a day we do our longer road rides. Chores and gym workouts done, we hopped on our cruiser bikes and pedaled over from the RV park -- just under 1.5 miles each way. It's definitely less crowded earlier in the week than towards the weekend, and it was not bad at all when we arrived on this beautiful spring day at lunchtime. Inside, in addition to the brewery, there are various local eateries. It's kinda like an upscale, non-chain food court in a industrial warehouse space. There is an assortment of spots to choose whatever suits your fancy, and you can then eat inside or out. There's pizza, barbeque, sushi, even a butcher shop, high-end chocolate and gelato, and a bakery, which was closed (sigh...). "Mac'd Out", a macaroni-and-cheese spot, caught our eye and sounded good. Haven't had mac-n-cheese for a long time! The food in such a spot is not inexpensive, as you might imagine, but quality is definitely above a typical food court experience. We split a "build your own" mac-n-cheese, which we had made with chicken breast, broccoli, and roasted red peppers. The perfect comfort food, it was creamy and delicious and enough for the two of us. We also enjoyed trying a couple of different beers on tap at Crooked Can. Their Lime Gose was very sour and suited us both very well indeed. It was a perfect day to sit outside and enjoy a meal, and it never got too crowded -- but I would not want to be here on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday! We thought about dessert, but ended up passing. We had chocolate and yummy gelato back at Pearl. There was a place to buy fancy paletas (popsicles) in exotic flavors, but after living in Mexico where they are ubiquitous and cheap, the thought of paying $4 (and up) for a popsicle was just too much for me. I do appreciate small local businesses and like to support them, but I have my limits.
While we won't be visiting this spot weekly since it's kinda pricey, I hope we'll stop by from time to time. It was a fun change from our normal routine and a nice treat! We enjoyed our walk to Newton Park the previous Sunday morning so much, we decided to do the same on Easter Sunday. With so many attending Easter church services, the normally busy roads were almost eerily quiet and peaceful, and the lake was silent with fog shrouding the distant shore, blurring the line between sky and water. We spied this Great Blue Heron hunting ever so stealthily among the lake-edge vegetation. On our return trip, the sky brightened up and sunshine highlighted downtown Winter Garden's spring flowers. Also on the return trip, Barry led me down a road to see a lovely display in a yard -- he knew how much I would appreciate this! (The bike was actually spray painted pale pink but showed up more white in the photo. It is not a ghost bike, just a decoration!) Braces update.
I think he is making more adjustments now as I'm getting closer to the end of my braces "sentence". I've had them on for seven months now and should have no more than five more months to go in the worst case. I'm hoping for a mid-summer "release date", but we shall see. You know I'll keep you posted!
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Emily & BarryWe're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible. Archives
July 2019
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