Manatee Festival

Last Sunday we decided to go to the Manatee Festival at Blue Spring State Park. Blue Spring is about an hour and a half NW of us ~ just above Orlando. We had never been before ~ and I have to say in retrospect, this was probably not the best weekend to go. The festival itself was not actually at Blue Spring State Park, but a mile or two away at an empty field. We attempted to drive to the park but were turned around by friendly law enforcement who let us know that the park was filled to capacity and the only option was parking at the fair and taking the shuttle over so park we did. Once we got into the festival we were told that only the people currently in line would be able to take the shuttle over and we were welcome to come into the festival and they would only charge us half price. I figured we might as well since we'd already driven up there. I have to say, it was pretty cheesy. The kids were hungry and between the entry fee and the food we managed to drop $60 within the first half hour. It was a lot of tacky crafters booths and some inflatable stuff for the kids that you had to pay extra for. I think this is the one booth that has stuff we actually thought was okay
We walked around for a bit and did get to see one very cool thing.... They had the "World Famous Frisbee Dogs" performing. Between Richard and I, we got some pretty good pictures

The kids had their picture taken with "Harley" and purchased frisbee's that were used in the show
The guy's name is Laurence Frederick and you can see more about them at www.K9frisbee.com
As we were leaving we did see this one very cool booth. This guy carves fish and fish faces from driftwood. His prices were actually pretty reasonable.
We thought our day was over but the best part was yet to come.... I'll tell you all about it next time!