Rodeo - Visit - Chocolate King - Beatles

(Auburndale, FL) Hi  93  Lo 76 --  If you like heat, this is the place to be. The temperatures have been in the mid 90's and the humidity is usually 70% or higher. My kind of place. I'm very happy with the temperatures. Jim walks most days, usually around 9am, and I still play shuffleboard two days a week from 10 till 12:30.  We've had rain almost every day. Lots of water comes down the gutters. It rains hard for about 10 minutes, sometimes with the sun shining brightly, then it's gone. Sometimes there's lots of lightning with the rain. (Click on the pictures to enlarge).


















When it's not raining we have seen some people fishing along the canal. These guys have a trolling motor on a home made raft. They didn't fall in while I was watching and they were all over the lake. I'd call that good balance .











And canoes are popular.


We went to a rodeo in Kissimmee. It's hometown boys trying to ride the bulls and the horses. It was a fun night for locals. I'm spoiled with the championship rodeos. I'd rather see one of the pro rodeos, but it was still fun.

A few of the pictures from the rodeo with the guys being bucked off in a second or two. Only three held on for the eight second count.





 

The kids ran to get close to  little calves with a ribbon on their tail. The first one to get a ribbon won a prize.


It was a fun night.

Lee and Rosemary visited us from Adelaide Shores, our former park. They spent the afternoon with us and caught us up to date on what's going on in Avon Park, FL. It was great seeing them. We'll see them again soon.

Lee and Rosemary


We get Groupon offers by email everyday and love getting discounted tickets for places and events around the area. One was for a tour at Chocolate King in Kissimmee. It was half price so we took off one afternoon for the tour. There were several people on the tour since it's so close to Disney. They gave details on the history of chocolate and how it's made. At several stops on the tour we got a sample what it tastes like at that stage of production, the cocoa bean, the chocolate water, and the final product. It was very interesting and their chocolate is excellent.







Dresses made from chocolate bar wrappers.


A castle made from chocolate.


The scenery with running river of liquid chocolate.
















The machines the make the chocolate from bean to bar.


A few items made with chocolate.

You can order your own personalized chocolate bar, which we did.


Then it comes to the front for pickup. It takes 5-7 minutes to "cool".




The tour was worth the Groupon price of $8 each, but I don't think we'd pay the full $16.95 price..

We also got a Groupon for a "Classic Albums Live" concert in Lakeland. A Beatles tribute band recreated the album "Revolver" note for note. The audience was our age with a few young people. The first half of the show was the "Revolver" album, and the second half was some other Beatles hits. It was a very good show, but we both thought the show we saw last year in Orlando of the Beatles album "Abbey Road" was better. This was our first time attending the Lakeland Center. It's a nice place and they have lots of great events throughout the year. Plus it's only 20 minutes from our house.



We will keep you updated on what we do. Next week our son and family will be here. We're looking forward to that. See you next Friday.