This post documents my experience on October 9, 2009.
It’s after 9:30 pm as I write this and I just consumed some DQ small sundae with pumpkin pie pieces, tag-a-longs and caramel sauce. The 15 year old cashier even raised her eyebrow when I ordered it. That HAS to imply some mistake on my part.
So, sure, I’m wired…but I can crash at any time. So, if my rather long sentences dramatically turn into monosyllabic utterances, then you know I’ve crashed.
So let’s begin…
I drove down to and through the city of Butler, a quaint town that seemed to take advantage of the 2-weekend festival with its garage sales scattered about. Various houses were festively decorated for Halloween. One house even had a row of plastic jack-o-lanterns lined across the fence.
It was cool.
I found the festival without a problem and the parking area was big.
Check out those fall colors peaking through…
I made my way to the entrance….
…and studied the map.
The festival was pretty nice, filled with various vendors and appearing like some frontier town you were in the midst of. And why WOULDN’T you think that? There were trees all around you, earthy smells and absolutely no phone reception in the entire area. It was like I was backwards in time.
Cedar Point’s Frontier Trail mixed with a camping site. It was really cool. Just had to watch the mud from the previous day’s rain.
Here are some pics along the trails….
In the beginning, it seemed to go forever with booths, but you eventually got a better sense of things with their road signs and pathways. Once I combed all the pathways over, jumping from one section to the other was a breeze.
The various items they had were interesting. I bought my nephew a mini ocarina from a South American booth. They had crafts, things for the home, clothing, food, and gifts. Here are some of the things I found most interesting…
Spider Pumpkin Holders
Blowfish Glass Ornaments
Folk Art
Pun-ish slogans
Wolf Prints
Scarecrows named after my Brother.
And if you weren’t there to buy anything, they had stuff to watch….
…like a concert…
…a wood carver…
…and a wood chainsaw artist.They also had food…
Pork Rinds and things
Fudge
And my buffalo chili.
In fact, besides the various food places scattered about, there was also a “food court” area in the back with a small stage. Here, they had fried bologna, a 5 dollar fritter booth (that had crates of apples they used to make a pile of mini-fritters with…if I wasn’t by myself, I would have gotten some), pie, cheese on a stick, smoked turkey legs, burgers, etc…just about everything.
A food courtyard (on the left is the fritter booth).
I ended up staying until 5, when they closed, talking a bit with the Fudgie Wudgie, Jr. Booth out of Pittsburgh. Even with this being my 26th festival, the people of Fudgie Wudgie were/are doing 250 shows a year. That’s 10 times more than I’ve already done (ok…so they have a lot more people and booths involved). Still, I’m sure it’s fascinating to keep going out there and seeing so many wonderful parts of the country. Even with the “relatively” few I’ve been to, I’ve really enjoyed then.
So here’s to people like Fudgie Wudgie for going the distance so I could get that chocolate covered pretzel from you.
It was great!
And here’s a bear totem pic for anyone who read this all the way through :-)