Strawberries, We Got Strawberries!

Copyright 2014, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

It's strawberry time in this area of Florida.  So, of course, there is a festival. Plant City is the location.  It reminds us of a county fair.  Strawberries. Food vendors in abundance.  Strawberries. Carnival rides.  Strawberries. Carnival games and prizes.  Strawberries, growing and served up as yummy cakes.  A number of buildings with vendors offering just about everything you can imagine for sale, pots n pans and purses and MORE! Strawberries. An art show (with lots of paintings with lots of strawberries, of course.)  Strawberries.

Carnival rides and games:

There was a display set up to show how the strawberries were planted and grown.

In the buildings there were a number of display rooms, reminding me of 4H displays at our local county fair back home.

Yep, we had shortcake!  With a biscuit.  YUM!

The whipped cream topping was probably the best I have ever had.  Sinful.  Yummy.  Fantastic.  You could pile on as many berries and as much cream as you wanted.  Price, very reasonable.

Man built a nice looking strawberry desert, don't you think?

This festival is very well run, the volunteers were all friendly and helpful, they were all smiling.  We saw a number of law enforcement officers, whom we engaged in some conversations, they were all informative and pleasant. This is a nice family friendly clean festival.

I walked enough, too much, by the time I got home the ankle was screaming.  A few days of rest helped the ankle. The memories and the strawberry cake were worth the ankle screaming.  So worth it!

Thanks to my many friends in the area that encouraged Man and I to attend.  You did not mislead, this is a great festival, not to be missed.

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Plant City Florida, Antiques, Strawberries And Trains

Copyright 2014, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Plant City Florida, is a interesting, eclectic town mid Florida.  The town was named after prominent railroad developer Henry B. Plant.  There is, of course, a Wikipedia page on the town.  And, yes, you can even learn more about Henry.

Basically we went out to lunch, and on a short discovery drive/tour of the town.  We parked Jolly and got out and walked around town.  There was a great theater building.

There are lots of antique stores in Plant City.  L*O*T*S!!  I found a small photo frame I decided to purchase, less than $2.00 and ended up having a very interesting discussion with the shop owner and a friend of hers.  They filled me in a bit on some of the local history and stories.  They suggested we walk down to the train station/museum, which we decided we must do.

But, before we arrived at the train/museum area, I found another wall of art.

Plant City is the home of a strawberry festival in late February or early March.  We have seen many fields of strawberries growing near the campground. Man found some strawberries at a local market, they were wonderful.

The train museum area:

The lady at the antique store was very taken with these benches at the museum.  They are made from wheels off trains.  What you cannot see here, is that there is another bench behind this one.  Two benches for each set of wheels.

Train stuff!  Clean, well preserved, nicely painted.

Sadly, the museum was closed so we wandered back to Jolly and headed back to Tana.  There are many older homes, small neat homes.  The down town area proper had a couple of vacant buildings, however, there were many thriving businesses.  They are saving their history, as the railroad museum indicates.  There is a business area with many of the common restaurants and businesses that are popular for shopping. We were quite taken with Plant City.




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