Lucky us! Before leaving St. Petersburg, we went to the Strawberry Festival in Plant City to see The Band Perry. We all like country music and are Band Perry Fans so this was very special! It was great to see them in a county fair type setting. I bet they had booked this event before they won at the CMA’s. They sang their familiar songs plus did some old favorites from other entertainers. She had energy to spare. It was a good sized fair and lots of girls were in their shorts and cowboy boots. They had strawberry crepes, shortcake and chocolate covered strawberries. We did our “fair” share of sampling. We have been enjoying Plant City strawberries for breakfast all week.
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| The Band Perry |
We were in for some nice surprises today. We thought we would take a scenic road and head up to Gainesville to check out the city and go to an estate sale. The scenic road was through beautiful horse country with miles of black wood fences and large expanses of green rolling hills and oak trees. Norm pulled one of his quick u-turn when we saw a garage sale sign. The owner was selling some of her parents “stuff” plus some of her own. It was obviously an ongoing sale. She was quite a character and didn‘t mind talking. She was single and probably about my age and still had 28 horses, did horse training and horse breading. We learned a little about the horse business in the area. In the past she had close 100 but the recession has taken a toll of the horse business. It turns out that this area is second to Lexington, KY in the horse business and I think there is a little bit of competition going on. Maybe the black fences are there as a contrast to the white fences in KY. Norm found a couple of things to sell on Ebay. The estate sale was a bust but it took us into some different neighborhoods. The University of Florida, home of the Gators, is one of the largest in the country and has a huge campus and stadium. The second surprise was a wonderful 3 mile walk at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park. The area encompasses a large sinkhole which is now a savannah type prairie with a spring running through it. Newer sink holes are being formed. We saw wild horses with lineage back to the horses introduced by the Spanish and sooo many alligators from babies to the big guys along with sandhill cranes prancing around. They would prance around, throw clumps of dirt and plants up in the air, stomp on them and then pick at them for bugs. Great walk. Our next surprise was finding a horse show on our way home. We drove back along another scenic highway through more horse country and saw some huge striped tents and a horse ring with jumps. Norm pulled another immediate u-turn and asked some questions. We had come upon a large scale national horse competition. They were just about ready to do a “hunter” competition with jumps simulating those in a hunt. We found seats in the bleachers, got a glass of wine and watched to goings on. A woman sitting behind us was full of information. She and her young daughter were down for a couple of months to enter the competitions. This show is part of a huge circuit of year long shows. The riders were earning prize money plus qualifying for the annual Hunter Prix in Saugertieas, NY, with prize money of $500,000. What a different niche of society and one I know nothing about. I do know it takes lots of money to be in this horse world! Tom, you probably know all about the Hunter Prix and have ridden in it! There were over 2,000 horses here for this two month period!
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| Sinkhole in Paynes Prairie State Park Alligator Country |
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| A Couple of Big Guys We saw dozens of Gators at Paines Prairie |
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| Horse Competition Look carefully and you can see the horse jumping. |
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| One of the Horse Jumping Rings |
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| Caught Another Jump |
We had planned on dinner at Sonny’s Bar B Q. Every city has one and the billboards said that “Sonny was a good guy with really good Bar B Q!” Of course we had to try it. The acclaim was right on with fabulous ribs and wings. I thought I would have a beer, thinking maybe some local brew, but when she asked if I wanted a Bud or Bud Lite I decided that water was just fine. Somehow our days turn out to be filled with interesting finds!
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