A day in Florida - Tea Parties and Hollywood

Patrick Henry harangues the crowd
(click any image to enlarge)

Last Saturday, heading south from Tallahassee, Mrs Sinistral and I decided to stop in Lake City for lunch. When we drove through the downtown we noticed that a Tea Party crowd had gathered in the square. After parking, I decided to visit the event while my wife, who is a Democrat, fled to a nearby lake to avoid Tea Party cooties.

When I arrived the fellow pictured above was quoting Patrick Henry and delivering a stem-winder of a speech. This was two days after the Obamacare decision and so the crowd was quite naturally receptive to getting riled up and they hooted their approval of his fiery speech. 

The layout of the park had a large bricked area immediately in front of the stage the speakers were orating from. About thirty yards away was a grassy area shaded by trees, and that's where most of the crowd was. 

Walking back there, it became clear that this was a candidate forum. A lot of candidates had booths set up and the candidates themselves began giving speeches once the Patrick Henry fellow was through with his. I even got my hand shook by one hopeful. I told him I was from out of town and couldn't vote for him, but I wished him luck. 

The local Tea Party was there and appeared to be the organizers. They had a big sign, which I didn't take a picture of, waning about the UN's Agenda 21. If you're not familiar with it, it is an obnoxious bit of one-worlder social engineering that needs to be slapped down when it rears its ugly head. Because of the prominence of the sign I wondered if they were having problems with their local planning department running amuck.

By the way, when my wife rejoined me from her visit to the lake she said that they had a monument to an event in Lake City's history when they gathered together and tossed the carpet baggers guns into the lake.

For lunch we ate at a rather eccentric old-style diner called Rupert's Bakery & Cafe. The cheeseburger I had was one of the better I've gotten in some time. You probably wouldn't want to exist on a steady diet of them, but if you're driving through Lake City stop and give the place a try -- if for no other reason than to figure out how the words 'eccentric' and 'old-style' can be combined and still make sense.

We then drove down to Ocala where we were going to spend the night. We went to Ocala's old town square looking for a place to eat and stumbled across another crowd. This crowd was dressed in suits and expensive dresses and lined up in front of the Marion theater. There was a red carpet laid out and a young lady, she's behind the fellow in the blue shirt in the picture above, playing a saxophone.

Inquiring what this was about we were told that the theater was hosting a premier of the movie Savages, and that John Travolta, one of its stars, was rumored to be making an appearance at the premier. It being a nice night we decided to wait and see if the rumor was true. The crowd gathered and we found a spot behind some construction barricades that gave us a good view of the alley we expected he would enter the theater from.

Sure enough, the rumor was true. Shortly before the scheduled start of the premier a black Escalade pulled up and out popped john Travolta and a woman who I think was his wife Kelly Preston. Unfortunately she is blocked by the fellow in the white shirt in the picture above.