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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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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