Our 4th July Celebrations. Pt 2

Florida Guide > Owners Vacation Diary

As we approached Celebration via the I4 and World Drive, the roads were unusually quiet. With the excision of one notice, advertising the free park and ride from Celebration Place, there was nothing to indicate that the town would be busy or parking difficult to secure - how wrong we were! As we turned off Celebration Ave and drove down by the golf club we started to see cars parked at the side of the road - not bumper to bumper just more than we would usually expect to see - and the numbers increased as we got nearer to the town centre. Passing in front of The Corpus Cristina Roman Catholic Church we noticed an enterprising individual holding up a board saying ' Parking $5' and we committed this to memory should it be required later.

Driving on towards the town centre we started to see more and more people on foot making their way towards the evening' s events. On approaching the school it was obvious that this was also being used for parking with prime ots on the playing field already occupied. Here, no doubt due to its closer proximity to the town centre, parking was $10 with proceeds going to the schools' band fund. It looked less and less like there was any chance of parking in any of Celebrations usual car parks but our designated driver was determined to take a quick look anyway! One or two people in front of us were lucky to secure spaces just as others were leaving, but it soon became obvious that we would need to return from whence we came and ted for the $5 bargain at Corpus Cristi Church. Was the guy on the gate being a little cynical when he claimed ' I knew you would be back' ?

We strolled along the sidewalk with the flow of people all gravitating towards the town centre. At Lake Evalyn Drive we veered off to the right along Wisteria Lane and skirted the shores of the lake which was looking very tranquil in what had turned out to be a surprisingly lovely evening.

As we crossed the bridge through the conservation area and approached Celebration' s main lake we could see that the prime viewing spots for the evening' s fireworks had already been taken. Families with picnics, rugs and camping chairs were already enjoying themselves and looking forward to the evening' s main event. Across the lake we could see that the usually peaceful Celebration town centre was exceptionally busy. On turning in to Bloom St we could see that the barbecue outside The Celebration Bohemian Hotel was doing a roaring trade. At the corner there was a notice requesting ' no coolers or bottles beyond this point' , although we observed people picnicking from their coolers and nobody seemed to be policing the area for anyone contravening this request.

All the shops were open and dressed in patriotic red, white and blue. Each restaurant was busy and had a stall selling food outside on the street. The Market St Cafe was doing a roaring trade in hot dogs and beers, Cafe D' Antonio appeared to be selling meatballs and pasta and Kirwins had a huge queue for ice cream and their outside subsidiary was going great guns selling toffee apples, candy floss and the like. The Uppercrust Pizza had spilled over on to the street with pizza available not only from the store, but also outside, and the huge trays of paella from The Columbia restaurant took two men to bear them aloft to their outside venue. There was absolutely no excuse for anyone without a picnic, or dinner reservation to go hungry!

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