Busy weekend

Few weekends have as many events taking place as this past weekend. On Saturday morning the Little Cousin Jasper Festival got started with a 5K run, but most of the running during the day was done at the high school, which hosted the annual Rensselaer Cross Country Invite. At one time it was a major high school cross country meet, but in recent years the middle school part of the meet has attracted the most teams. I think the group running below was seventh grade boys. A minute after the start, some of them have run 400 yards while others have only run 200.

In the evening, the high school hosted a marching band contest, so it was a busy day at the high school

I visited the Fall Festival at the fair grounds, and it was pretty much like it was last year. There were a lot of vendors selling things and a respectable crowd. The big news from this festival is that next year it will be held the weekend before Labor Day, so it will not longer coincide with the Little Cousin Jasper Festival. (The Fall Festival got started when the LCJ festival ceased operating for a couple of years.) It will be interesting to see how these two festivals do next year on different dates.

On the way out to the fair grounds, I met the tractors from the Retired Iron club heading into Rensselaer to take part in the LCJ festival parade. I was able to get back in time for the entire parade. In addition to the tractors, there was a horse. The Rensselaer Republican had a story about the the horse and its owner. The owner is starting a business giving carriage rides. I guess there are wedding parties and other occasions where a horse drawn carriage would be fun.

The SJC band was impressive and very colorful in their tie-dyed tee shirts.

I had other things to do on Saturday, so I did not catch much of the entertainment. I wandered around the various booths and saw this big chair next to Slice of Pie Pizza. It was available for anyone who wanted to sit on it. This little girl had a fun time trying on the pink wig and the giant sunglasses.

A second stage was set up for some of the entertainment, especially for the featured band on Saturday night. Below you can see the opening act.

Sunday was cloudy, cool, and windy. The booths were supposed to stay open until 3:00 and had a financial incentive to do so, so most of them did not take down until then. The penultimate performance was a band concert from the Community Band. They always do a good job.

I do not have anything else listed on my calendar for September. Is there anything interesting coming up?