Maitland Art Festival

It's a beautiful Saturday night and I'm home watching football (TN vs AUB).
I spent Friday and Saturday over in Orlando with my friend Linda. We went shopping at the Mall of MIllenia..( got to go to Anthropologie-one of my favorite places to shop) and spent most of the afternoon there. After dinner at the Cheesecake Factory we headed to the Sheraton Hotel in Maitland. Checked in, had a glass of champagne (of course!) and made our way to the Maitland Art Festival where my brother David is showing his work this weekend. One of the nice things about this particular show, is that it goes until 10:00pm each night. Most shows close down at dark...but this stays open late...with sparkly lights in the trees, lighted walkways around Lake Lily and nice music too. It was a lovely evening....a bit cooler a and perfect night for "art under the stars".
Linda and I are both what some might call..."directionally challenged". I don't think I ever go to Disney World..or Orlando without making at least one wrong turn, u-turn, etc.(ask Brenna and Megan about this...haha) Part of this is due to the fact that in Indialantic...it's pretty easy to get around town... there's little room for error...the ocean is east and the river is west...and when you are on a peninsula or barrier island...like we are...that pretty much leaves North & South as the only things you have to think about.So...getting around Orlando....is a little bit of an adventure! I will always let someone else do the driving when I can.....and Linda was good natured enough to agree to drive, even though she is about as bad as me when it comes to more than 4 lanes and exits, etc. haha...so we made quite a pair! The good thing (for both of us) is that each time we took a wrong turn (and there were several) we just laughed, did a u-turn and went the other way! The gal at the desk drew us a nice little map and carefully explained...turn left, turn right, etc...."it's really simple" she didn't know who she was dealing with and we set off........well...that "simple" little trip took us about twice as long as usual...because we immediately took a wrong turn. Eventually...we made it to the park and spent an hour and a half at the show. As most of you know...David always knows the best place in town to eat...no matter where he goes...and Maitland was no exception. The is a Deli/Restaraunt right across the street from the park; Antonio's Cafe. David ate lunch there at 12 noon, dinner at 5:00 and told Linda and I we should hang around and join him and our friend Mo (Maurice) when the show ended.Last year the place closed at 10:00pm...and my brother told them they ought to consider staying open until 11:00pm during the show weekend...because there would certainly be plenty of people looking for a place to have a drink or a bite to eat after the show. They took his advice and this year stayed open until 11:00. Of course they recognized him immediately and we got the deluxe service with plenty of smiles! Mo had some tasty Eggplant Parmesan and I had some Creamy Butternut Squash soup that was DELICIOUS! Davis, Linda and Mo also shared a nice pizza. It was a perfect way to end the night. Saturday, Linda and I slept in, ate breakfast and headed back to really look at the art. The weather was wonderful......clear, a little breeze and not too hot. David had a great spot on the side of the lake...right near the entrance of the park. We watched people looking at David's art(always fun to hear the comments), took a couple of walks around the lake to see all the artwork...and Linda bought herself a couple of things. We stopped for lunch at ....where else but Antonio's Cafe...and David was in there when we got there. Haha. We got a table and he decided to sit with us a minute (Mo was watching the booth) and then headed back. When we left, the manager thanked us and said..."See you at 11:00PM!" haha He will see David....we were heading home. We packed up and headed out.. When I got home John cooked up some of the fresh wahoo they caught Wed/TH....caught 3 40-50 pd wahoo, mutton snapper, red snapper, grouper, amberjack......LOTS of fish. He and Ron spent 4hours cleaning fish Friday afternoon! Great weekend and there's still one day to go!