Volcanic Activity in Central Florida

This afternoon I made an essential Parrothead clothing run to the Margaritaville Cafe at Universal Studios in Orlando. I did this selfless action to get some proper clothing for a Parrothead party in Englewood Florida this Saturday night. When I walked in the door of the Cafe I could hear the familiar strains of Jimmy's uber smash hit "Volcano" blasting throughout the building. Not 30 seconds after the song stopped however, I heard and then saw the familiar sight of a volcano bursting. You can see an earlier rendition of the same volcano here, mon.

As you can see from this video, once the "lava" starts flowing down from the caldera of the volcano it lands in a large vat titled "Booze in the Blender." The vat must be at least 20 gallons - maybe more. Curiously the volcano belches out just enough fluid to fill the booze blender to its rim. This, of course, is not lava but margarita mix for the next hour or so of margaritas that will be sold here in Mecca.

Once the blow was over I sat directly beneath the volcano watching the blender fill with nectar. In this naturally exciting situation I called my friend of 25 years Chris Haney and gave him a play-by-play description of the volcano explosion and its aftermath. During the conversation with Chris it was determined that we need to undertake a mission to the Dominican Republic to get Double-striped Thick-knee for Chris' life list and for my West Indies list and we need to do this some time soon.

For lunch this afternoon I ordered a Cuban sandwich and washed it down with an ultra cold pint of Landshark Lager on tap. This is the first and only Margaritaville Cafe that I've visited that has Landshark on tap. I remember in 1992 begging Jimmy's business manager to get beer on tap in the Margaritaville Key West cafe because a "cold draught beer" is mentioned in "Cheeseburger in Paradise" but at that time none of the cafes had any beer on tap. Thankfully that oversight has been corrected.

I nursed my Cuban sandwich through three eruptions of the volcano. After about 1.5 hours of working the same sandwich (but not the same pint of Landshark) I paid my bill and moved to the Smuggler's Hold retail store where I stocked up on essential Parrothead clothing and got another copy of the CD "Meet Me in Margaritaville." This essential CD is a perfect one for Parrotheads-in-Training.

Margaritaville Orlando is the only one of the 18 Margaritaville's that has an exploding volcano. This alone is reason enough to visit the place. This was the ninth Margaritaville I have visited where I ate a Cuban sandwich and drank a Landshark. I'll be able to rest easily once I have had a Landsark at each of the 18 cafe's. Until then I will simply savor the opprortunity to have sat beneath this gurgling pile of geology and watched it blow its top all afternoon, mon.