Festivities of the Orange Kind

Not everything works out as planned.

I was originally planning on riding Saturday, hopefully with a group heading somewhere but by Friday afternoon I sort of gave up on that idea.  I was feeling guilty.  Guilty because there was work that needed to be done, I had yard work to do that I kept putting off because of the summer heat and humidity.  Now that the heat and humidity are gone, there is no excuses.  Today, for example, was a pleasant 84 F (28.9 C)...still warm but without the humidity it is a pleasure to work in.

My mom and dad asked me to clean the gutters of their winter home...I still needed to do that.  

Truth be told, well I enjoy riding and exploring other parts of the local world, I really didn't feel like crossing the Howard Franklin bridge into St Petersburg to meet a group of strangers to ride back into Tampa and spend all day exploring the parks of my adopted city.  Or I could meet the other group and ride out to Lake Wales on various back roads and spend all day in the saddle.

Both options appealed to me but frankly I was not looking forward to either like I originally thought I would.  .  

So when the lovely Sue mentioned the Hunsadar Farms Pumpkin Festival was having their final weekend to me this Saturday, it just seemed right.  Plus they had an air cannon you could shoot a pumpkin out of.  An AIR CANNON!  Okay, the geek was me was excited.  Maybe they let me fire it...just once PLEASE!  PRETTY PLEASE!

So Sue and I jumped into our "Great Pumpkin" and hit the road.  Hunsadar Farms is about 75 minutes south of us in Brandenton, Florida.  The Pumpkin Festival was a combination of things, merchants, musicians, a petting zoo, food stalls, entertainment and Americana.

It's not that far from the Rosa Fiorelli vineyards, which just happen to be my favorite local wine maker, so you know we had to stop there too!  Trust me, follow the link and order a bottle or three, it's worth it.  

Scarecrows provided a distraction

We walked hand in hand taking in the crowd, the event was geared to the little ones to some extent as petting zoo's and jumping frog competitions were part of the day's events.  Two girls, maybe 5 and 6, tried their hands at frog wrangling to the amusement of the crowd, the and horror of their mother.

We got to see the air cannon fire a pumpkin into a strand of trees some 300 plus yards away.  There were some monster trucks, a hay ride, corn maze.  All the normal stuff that you would expect, but a zip line?  No, that we didn't expect.

There were a few shows and demonstrations as well.  Dirt bikes going off of jumps (missed that show) and a Monster truck flattening some old car (missed that too), but we did see the "Wall of Death" where, in addition to motorcycles, they used an old go-kart and a pedal bicycle.

Overall it was a good day, and sometimes you need to do something different to get out of the rut.  I think I was in a rut, so getting out helped.

Well the bank is safe, I think

Sheriff didn't look that tough however.

Other scarecrows provided useful info.

A really old fashioned Merry-Go-Round

More photo's can be found on my Facebook page.  

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