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Erik & Smisty's Florida Oddventures


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Great photos! Oddly, the Key West Aquarium reminds me of the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. It has the same type of mismatched "feel" to it.

 

I guess I need to venture to the Clearwater Aquarium as you are somehow persona non grata there.

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I guess I need to venture to the Clearwater Aquarium as you are somehow persona non grata there.

 

No no, they're not unhappy with us (so far as I know), we are boycotting them!

 

/Clearwater = evil.

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I want to check out the Clearwater Marine Aquarium sometime. I live maybe 15 minutes away. Besides Winter (the dolphin that uses a prosthetic tail), there's Panama the dolphin, who they recently discovered is deaf, plus they just rescued an orphaned baby dolphin that's going to share the pool with Winter once she's big enough. They also have some turtles and river otters along with some other stuff.

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If you follow either Smisty or myself on Twitter or facebook, then you already know how excited we were for this next one....

 

The Great American Pie Festival

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Ah, Celebration, the town Walt Disney didn't build.

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There was an exotic car show in town at the same time, but that's not really our bag.

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It's the pie-nal countdown!

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There is nothing that isn't funny about this sign.

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From the website: "The American Pie Council® (APC) is the only organization dedicated to preserving America's pie heritage and promoting America's love affair with pies."

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Simply awesome.

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We decided to start with some real food. Er...sort of.

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Yes, this is a cheeseburger with brisket on top. And yes, it was amazing.

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The "world's largest pinball machine."

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I'm on a pie-way to hell!

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I'm so happy I could pie!

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Yes, they're about to open up the best thing here: the Never Ending Pie Buffet.

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Must...not...be...distracted.

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The buffet consisted of six or seven different companies offering 4-6 of their best and/or most interesting types of pie.

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Honestly, I'm not sure how many different types of pie there were altogether, as many companies had overlapping offerings. Still, there was plenty of variety.

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Wait...shellfish?

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White Chocolate Cherry Dream ended up being my personal favorite.

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Publix grocery was also there, offering pie, ice cream, and swag!

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And Village Inn gave out little binocular thingies (in addition to pie, of course).

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It's 92 degrees out and there's almost no shade. Who wants coffee?

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The topping bar looked interesting, but turned messy pretty quickly. We passed.

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The California Raisin Marketing Board brought some pretty interesting pies. The one pictured turned out to be Misty's favorite, and she doesn't even like raisins.

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S'cuse me while I kiss this pie!

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Smisty is not unimpressed.

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Sometimes I just can't resist pie-eling it on.

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Heading back for round two, we find it's...picked up a little.

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Isn't Key Lime pie supposed to be green-ish? Oh well, it was really good!

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And this week's 'Misty is going to kill me photo' is....

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Moving away from the pie buffet we find plenty of other pie-related activities.

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A dream come true, for me. Check one off the list.

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Cooking demonstration? Check. Me misreading the sign as "demon station"? Check.

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Okay, so we paid $2.00 for a bottle of water at the food truck, it's free in the buffet area, and here it's...I don't even know.

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Spin the wheel for a free prize! Also, there was a drawing for the grill.

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Which Misty won.

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Bounce house!

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And, for some reason, a parrot.

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"Piecasso" pie-pan decorating. I approve of this pun.

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And last, but certainly not least, bored children waiting to do something fun.

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At last The Pie Judge arrives and it's time for the pie eating contest!

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Good job, kids! We're not laughing at you, honest.

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It was hot, it was crowded, and we had to carry this damned grill all the way to our car--but we had loads of fun!

 

And about 17 slices of pie, between us.

 

I want to pie like an eagle, to the C...! (Celebration, that is.)

 

Pie pie now.

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It's 92 degrees out and there's almost no shade. Who wants coffee?

 

Old people that's who! Seriously, old people could be on the surface of the sun and they'd still want bad hot coffee!

 

Awesome report! I don't like pie, but this is always an event I watch on the food network and would love to check out. Did you see any of the contest reveals or anything like that?

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Isn't Key Lime pie supposed to be green-ish? Oh well, it was really good!

I don't claim to know much about pies, but I do know that the best Key Lime pie is brownish in color. The green is usually the cheap stuff.

 

A few points about the report:

-Loved it.

- It was nice to see a bit of Celebration again. The place is somewhat creepy in a "Truman Show" sense, yet fascinating at the same time. And I do love the golf course there as well.

- The second pic was obviously my favorite.

- My wife would probably be in the coffee line.

- Congrats on the grill.

- Did you play the pinball machine?

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Some of us were told we could no longer mention pie in these here parts many moons ago. A true travesty, at it should be it's own food group.

 

We almost moved to Celebration way back when they were building it. I hate my parents for not doing it. And now I have an even bigger reason why!

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Koreans love their hot coffee too. I'll never forget thinking I was starting to get Heat Stress at Everland, where I could find NO A/C at all. I get in line for a bottle of water, and the jackass in front of me orders an espresso. It was 95 and humid. And of course, it took a couple minutes to make for him. Meanwhile, my vision is blurring.

 

-RO

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Did you play the pinball machine?

 

Well, it wasn't really a pinball machine, is the thing. More like plinko. So, no.

 

 

Which day did the two of you go?

 

We were only able to attend on Sunday. Got there early, but were wiped out (by the sun) by 3:00pm.

 

 

Did you see any of the contest reveals or anything like that?

 

I assume that stuff happened on Saturday. There didn't seem to be anything like that while we were there.

 

And, in closing, let me just say: Pie!

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Great photos! I love pie!

 

I'm not big into drinking coffee, regardless of the temperature. The only time I really drink coffee is if I go out to breakfast. Come to think of it, the Golden Corral puts out beer during breakfast. I thought of grabbing a bottle the next time I'm there in the morning, just to see the expressions on people's faces.

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I love me some pie. I actually prefer it over cake (because my aunt makes the best from-scratch cake in the world and ruined all other cakes for me). Maybe next year I can drag the BF with me to this.

 

And I'll drink coffee when it's 92 degrees out... if it's iced coffee.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think I will take one for the team and do the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. Also, I might have a lunch date at the Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City. I should start "Barry's Unusual Experiences" and pick up on the stuff Erik misses. I have a lot of attractions where I live in SW Florida.

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