Fall Festival (Part 1)

I visited the Fall Festival on Saturday, entering via the south entrance, and the first activity I saw was in the horse arena. On my trips to the county fair this year, I never saw any of the horse activities of which there were many, so it was fun to see the horses in action. They were racing around barrels trying for the fastest time.

 One of the highlights of the festival are the acts on the free stage. The group NightShift, which is out of Monterey, IN was on stage when I arrived. It is a variety band that plays many styles of music. They did not have a big crowd sitting in front, but they were loud enough so that you could be some distance away and still hear fine. The hot sun discouraged sitting in front--only a few of the picnic tables had shade. I enjoyed what I heard from the group. (This Youtube video shows that they have played here before.)

 My impression was that there were more vendors this year. The main exhibit hall, shown below, was full of vendors, as was the Community Building next to it. The Commercial Tent or Hall to the south was also full.

South of the Commercial Tent area were a number of food vendors. I recognized a few from the County Fair, but I had not seen most of them before. One that I had not seen before was Texas Style Beef Brisket BBQ. However, I recognized the typeface, and I know the person who designed it. I was surprised that one of the people in the booth knew the name of the typeface.

 There was to be a tractor pull in what the schedule called the Lanai Area, but it was scheduled to start at 3:00 and I did not stay that long. You can see a couple of bouncy houses or slides from Party Time and a couple of entertainment booths in the background.

Near the show area was a petting zoo. It charged $3.00 for admission, but that included some food that your child could feed to the animals. Except the camel--it was on a restricted diet.

 If you wanted to take an animal home with you, all you had to do was toss a ping-pong ball into a goldfish bowl in a booth to the west of the petting zoo. If you won, you got a bunny. (I have not seen any bunnies in my yard lately--maybe they have moved to gardens with better bunny food.)

East of the petting zoo, in the sheep barn, a few people were playing bingo. Only those 18 and older were allowed to play. The show arena was set up for a cornhole tournament, which the schedule said had taken place before I arrived. (How widespread is the name cornhole? I saw mention of the same game in a town in Minnesota and there it was called a bean bag toss.)

Performing in the Rabbit Barn was ventriloquist Beth Sutton-Cummins. She had three puppets helping with her act, including this old fellow. She did a lot of ad-libbing and her characters also sang songs.

 She invited the kids to take a closer look at her talking moose, and some of them were a bit unsure of what to make of it.

 Near the Retired Iron building another threshing exhibition was starting. I wondered if the little tractor was a production model or hand made, but did not see anyone to ask.

There was a truck show at the north end of the fairgrounds, up along the highway, but I took enough pictures of it to justify a separate post.