Watermelons a go go!

For those of you who do not live in Jefferson County in Florida's panhandle, today was the 59th Annual Watermelon Festival. Everyone for miles comes out in the blistering heat to shop local vendors booths, watch skits, listen to music, sweat, and eat delicious watermelon. It's a shame that watermelons are celebrated during one of the hottest times of year, but that's what they get (and what we get) for celebrating them at all, because like it or not, this IS their "season".

Harley and I scored free passes to see the children's play being presented at the famed Monticello Opera House, so we were very excited about that. The show was called "Hot dogs and Cool cats". It was written, produced and directed by local talent. I have to tell you, it was precious! They even had their own tee shirts for sale to raise money for the Opera house. The tees were designed by a child, who I believe was 11 years old. It was incredible! I would love to post a pic, but sadly, I do not have one. The play was fun-tabulous! And Harley, he was lit up in the way only a child anticipating the magic of live music and theatre can be. I felt so blessed to be witness to the whole thing. The wonderful kids prancing around in their beautiful costumes and Harley's wonder and glee as he took it all in~ eyes as big as saucers, leaning forward to the edge of his folding seat, holding breath and smiling from ear to ear. ( Did I leave out any cliches?) Please feel free to add your own. They are all true.

Unfortunately, while ole Harley totally dug on the cool cats shtick, he completely broke down towards the end of the play because he was bit afraid of the rather mischievous, naughty/impolite hot dogs portion of the show. They were sort of mean to each other, calling names and such and they were really loud, and well, Harley is 3, so... there you go. He also said he was hungry. So we did not get to see the end, which was disappointing to me, but we enjoyed every minute of what we did see. (Not including the hot dogs, naturally)

So, off we went, in search of food. We could not find anyone selling anything except hot dogs and funnel cakes. I would have broken down and let Harley have a dog, but I think living as mostly a veggie kid, he'd have gotten sicker than sick. Which was just as well because it gave us a good excuse to duck into a little cafe and get into some a/c. Whew! I ordered us something to share, which he did not like, so he ate his left over pbj sandwich that was in our snack bag, and I ended up eating an entire club sandwich minus the ham. And fries. Oh the fries. I'm still paying for those fries and it's 9:20pm. We topped it off with a slice of home made chocolate cake with dark chocolate goo icing and cream cheese fluff layers! That was the high point of my lunch experience... maybe even the whole day. Na, Harley's love of theatre was the high point, but this was most definitely a close second!

After filling our bellies, we checked out some vendors as if we had money to spend! Nothing too spectacular to report about this... although, I did rather stealthily avoid the model car booth with every instinct I posses. (Another mommy disaster averted). I think I deserve some sort of award for the tap dancing I did despite my wicked heat delirium. We did catch one fun booth toward the end of our adventure. It was the motorcycle safety society's booth (perhaps the wrong name) , anyway, they charmed us and chatted us up. They gave us free bracelets, key chains and bumper stickers. "Watch for motorcycles!" They were very sweet and obviously taken in by Harley's cuteness, sporting his engineer hat and shades, which he calls his "cool". Yea, those motorcycle enthusiasts appreciate cool on a hot day like nobody else.

This marked the end of a lovely morning/afternoon for us. I was so sure Harley would pass out on the ride home from all the excitement and jungle heat, but, ah not so much. Unfortunately, when we arrived home, I was the one passing out! Mother nature has a twisted sense of humor. Luckily papa wasn't too far behind us getting home, so no harm was done to the cat, the house was not burned to the ground and momma got a peaceful nap on.

Strangely, we consumed no watermelon...? Maybe next year.