Friday 9 July 1993. We have booked to go to a cabaret dinner this evening so decide to have a lazy day. We visit the Mercado shopping mall and have breakfast at a cafe with a huge signboard describing all the different ways they fry eggs. Apparently we like them easy over and a little bit more...
After breakfast we had a look round the shopping mall and bought a couple of CDs of music that we were getting used to on the car radio whilst in America. I bought one by a hillbilly-looking outfit called The Cactus Brothers and it turned out to be excellent and a real foot-stomper. Then after a humble milkshake which made us stare in disbelief at a pint each plus a huge jug as top-up, we made our way to Kissimmee Old Town for a look round.
There was an Elvis Presley museum at Kissimmee and that had certainly made Fran excited about visiting. I like a lot of his stuff, but think it slightly weird the way he has been almost deified to be honest. He was however one of the originals and it's only right he should be remembered with love and respect. So we went round the museum that had a couple of cars, a large collection of gold discs, his pinball machine and some memorabilia of army days etc.
There was a large memorabilia shop themed around Coca Cola. I bought several postcards showing older advertisements and we bought some of the old original crimp-topped bottles of coke which at the time had disappeared entirely from UK shops. The place was fascinating to walk round and it was quiet enough for me to fall into a conversation with the guy serving behind the counter.
Then an afternoon of relaxing at the hotel before we headed for our dinner and cabaret at Fort Liberty, the home of Wild Bill's Wild West Dinner Show. We were seated at tables for around eight people and at each table one person was chosen to dish out the vittels. It fell to Fran to play the server for our table!
We were each given a cowboy hat adding to the atmosphere. They were made of straw... so it took a little imagination and suspension of belief (or disbelief) for this to work, but we were all looking forward to the proceedings so we went along with it!
The show had lots of music and a lasso-twirling rootin', tootin', ropin' cowboy! As the dancing girlies did the can-can you could see from her bandaged ankle that she had done it before!
Then a Native American Chief in full dress did a war dance and chucked a few tomahawks and knives around to great applause. When he finished he came down to our table to talk to us after hearing our accents. He was from Liverpool...
As the night came to an end Fran was presented with an Ornery Discharge from her duties as table monitor!
