With June upon us, we’ve entered a new season: festival season. Where we live, it seems like every suburban city has an Art & Wine festival and there’s a festival for every rural town’s pride and joy, from artichokes to pumpkins to garlic. These festivals draw huge crowds and are wildly popular with everyone. Except me, that is.
Between the huge crowds, the predictable crafts and the overpriced food, I’d usually rather stay home. But this weekend there were three festivals that piqued my interest, so I hopped on my bike and went for it. Dick came along for two of them. He’s surprisingly a bigger fan of street fairs than I am.
I survived the weekend with enough energy to bang out this blog post. What I learned: festivals are a lot more fun when you arrive by bike. You avoid the bumper-to-bumper traffic and the long walk from the parking area or the long wait for the shuttle buses. You just roll right up, lock up and you are in on the action.
Are you a fan of street festivals? What draws you there: the food, the music, the arts and crafts? Which ones are on your “do not miss” list for the season?
Rachel Unger
June 4, 2012 at 12:11 pm
I know that I have a list of “miss this for sure next year” festivals – but I think it’s the crowds, the predictable art and the sometimes crappy food that gets me. If everyone served things like those lamb chops, I’d be more in favor!
My do-not-miss is the corn bale maze down by the coast in October. The one with the Minotaur.
ladyfleur
June 4, 2012 at 9:24 pm
A couple of years ago my friends and I took our road bikes to the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival. It was fun to ride past the bumper-to-bumper traffic. Even when we were climbing back over at the end of the day, the traffic into HMB was still stopped. A guy yelled out “trade you.”
I think the corn bale maze is the one that rode mountain bikes down and back up from the ridge. That was fun. ROMP, the mountain bike club, does it every year. You should grab a MTB and do it this fall. http://ladyfleur.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/on-pumpkins-and-other-weighty-matters/