The Comedy Continues

 Ready for some more (!!!) stories from our trip? Our Saturday in Florida was full of them!

It was another drizzly, overcast day, but we were determined to make the best of it!

I had planned our trip so completely, and this day began with one of my favorite ideas of the entire trip. I found that there was a farmers' market nearby, and I thought it would be SO much fun to go to the market, do a scavenger hunt, and see what we could find for $20 to eat for lunch. I had gotten on Pinterest at home and found a few market scavenger hunts, picked my favorites from each, and made my own. I hoped we could find some great wraps or crepes or something for lunch.

Wellllllll.... (!!!)

We arrived, and this was the extent of the market:

Given that we were in a large city, I did expect something a little bigger! But it was not bigger. It was this. No fresh flowers. No live music. No old couples holding hands. No kids on their dads' shoulders. The scavenger hunt finds were slim indeed. 

Know what else they didn't have? Prepared food. So unless we wanted to chomp on an eggplant and wash it down with a jar of homemade spices, we were out of luck. Scavenger hunt and lunch foiled in one fell swoop. (!!!)

But I do have new sunglasses!

The park where the market was located did have some festive trees decorated by different groups, so we had fun looking at those instead. (There were many more than what is pictured here, but you get the idea.)

Then we went to the Habitat for Humanity Restore to see if we could find any treasures. We thought maybe Floridians had good cast-offs. Well, they do, but they have wildly high price tags to match. We found a simple chandelier (wooden) for sale for SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS. Used!!!! Eeek! (!!!)

Since we needed a new lunch plan, we went in search of a Chick-fil-A. Ryan knew he had seen one on our route. We headed that way and managed to drive right past it (!!!). Before turning around, I checked to see if there was another one ahead. There was! So we kept driving. When we arrived, we found it was not a Chick-fil-A at all, but a Chicken Salad Chick! 

THIS was a happy accident. We learned about this restaurant earlier this year, because my friend Pat's mom LOVES IT. There's one north of Indianapolis, apparently. I love chicken salad, so Ryan said we should probably just stop there. We did, and WOW. It was so so so good. If you have one around you and haven't been, you should give it a try!

Ryan got the buffalo chicken salad sandwich and the chicken artichoke soup. I had to SIT DOWN when he told me he got that soup, because I've tried to get him to eat artichokes in things forever and have only been successful once. Get this: he liked it!!

I got a scoop of the original chicken salad and a cup of fruit. Both were delicious. As was the pickle and the tiny sugar cookie. I ate every single bite of everything. I don't usually do that. 

It totally made up for the market fail. 

Then we went to an outdoor mall to look for murals and fun stores. Ryan found a pontoon he loved. 

And then he found the price tag.

We had lots of fun!

After our time of fun, we came back to our Airbnb. We planned to watch the sunset, but it wasn't visible, so we got ready for our next adventure. I'd found that there was going to be a tree lighting/fireworks show/Santa sighting at Baytowne Wharf, which was just down the road from our Airbnb. I had previously picked out a place for us to eat, and we headed over! 

Got to our dinner destination... (!!!!)

So.....we just walked around and took pictures. 

We walked out on the pier to see the boats in the marina:

And found more photo opps...

The tree lighting was supposed to start at 6, so we found a spot on the green and waited. We finally heard a voice over a loudspeaker, and he said he was Santa, and we should look up to see him. There was a zipline right there, so I presumed he was on one of the zipline platforms, but alas, the spotlights didn't seem to be working, and it was already dark, so finding him was...hard. (!!!) We did finally spot his red suit on the platform across the water, and he announced he was going to zoom in. Except it didn't work. (!!!) So he tried again, and it didn't work (!!!). FINALLY, on the third try, we saw the red suit bouncing on the line across the pond below. If you use your imagination, you can see him landing on the platform here in this picture. 

As if by Christmas magic, he was almost immediately on the stage below, even though I distinctly saw his red suit still climbing down the zipline stairs! Ha! He gathered the kids around him, and they sang some Christmas carols.

They did a countdown from ten to light the tree, and right about eight, this happened. (!!!)

And then about one, this happened. (!!!)

Santa and the crowd chanted "Light that tree" for the longest time, and nothing happened. So they tried a second countdown from ten (!!!).

And then, suddenly, the lights came on and stayed. We just had to laugh. Because...of course! The lights were actually very cool when they came on, because they were synchronized to music and made a great show.

Then there was a fireworks show, and I do love fireworks.

We left after that to go back to our condo to scrounge up some dinner and rest for the remainder of the evening. 

Fortunately, I must say, this pretty much ended our (!!!) moments for the trip. There were a few more sprinkled throughout, but nothing insane like the first few days. Even the ones we did have just became funny. I have more stories for next week!