Sunday, May 3, 2009

A busy and very wet weekend...

Well, the festival and street fair season in this end of the world got off to a fairly damp start this weekend. (I guess we’re paying for the last two weekends that were absolutely gorgeous.) We still managed to enjoy most of it though we did change our plans with the weather in mind.

Friday evening, we headed out to a First Friday event in the beautiful waterfront business district of Havre de Grace, MD. The street activities were scheduled to take place from 5 to 8 p.m. Unfortunately, we had a pretty heavy downpour about 4 p.m. and, although the sun was out when we got there at about 6 p.m., it pretty much closed down the outside displays and events. We did see one balloon artist entertaining some folks and one pub had some speakers set up to pipe some music out onto the street but that was about it. We were disappointed but made due with some ice cream and headed on home to watch the ballgame on T.V. Maybe June will be clear and dry.

Saturday dawned rainy and the forecast was for on again, off again showers throughout the day.

One of the biggest local street fairs takes place this weekend every year and attracts many thousands of spectators (20,000-35,000/day). Even in rain, the crowds are too big and tight to make using an umbrella practical. There are NO indoor venues associated with the event. In the event of a sudden downpour, you simply get wet. There is no such thing as rushing back to any of the garages which are located on far corners of the event. We’re getting too old to run anyway! We reluctantly voted this one down. We held out hope that Sunday would be better. (It wasn’t.)

We chose to go to one of our local wineries for their Spring Car Cruise and Arts and Crafts show instead. Parking is much more convenient at this small venue and there are indoor facilities in case of heavy rain. It rained hard during our 35- minute ride to the vineyard but miraculously rolled back to a drizzle upon our arrival and within minutes stopped all together. They did believe (or hoped) the rain was going to stop and the crafters had gone ahead and set up their EZ-Ups outside on the lawn. The car club had the cars set up and opened for display, too.

The sun never came out and there were numerous threatening clouds throughout the day, but it did stay dry. We spent a great afternoon seated at a table on the lawn, enjoying some great wine, food and easy listening live music. The surprise this time was how sunburned we got on such a cloudy day!!

Oh yeah, did I mention Elvis even showed up at this event?

We came home, rested up a bit and then joined friends at a local pub where she likes to sing karaoke. (They PAY me NOT to sing!! LOL)

This morning, the rain was very steady and the radar on the forecast didn’t look promising. We never left the house. It did stop raining by late afternoon but by then it was too late to get going. It’s now raining again.

We’re hoping for sun next weekend as there is an other full schedule of events.

1 comment:

The Retired One said...

I loved the Elvis!!

Too bad it rained on the festivities!
But the ice cream cone picture got me wanting my "thank god spring is here" treat!