Circleville Pumpkin Festival
According to Wikipedia, the largest pumpkin festival in the US is held annually in Circleville, Ohio. Circleville is only about twenty minutes south of Columbus, and tons of people go to the Punkin Show every year, but I've never been. Finally, yesterday, I went with Rachel, who's been a million times. We met up with one of the students who works in her office, who is from Circleville.
I had been imagining a quaint little small-town festival, a few city blocks, with some pumpkins with ribbons on them, maybe the Junior League selling lemonade and crullers. Boy, was I wrong. It was HUGE. Twelve city blocks, jam-packed with artisans and vendors and exhibits and, I swear to God, every single fair-food vendor in the Midwest. I have been to a lot of fairs and I have never seen so many food vendors, ever. There were lots of choices for pumpkin eatables. Pumpkin burgers, pumpkin pie (of course), pumpkin donuts, pumpkin chili, pumpkin cream puffs, pumpkin waffles, pumpkin pop corn...Rachel even got a corn dog with pumpkin smeared all over it.
Of course the centerpiece is the Giant Pumpkin, this year's champ weighed 1300 pounds. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time. It was cool but not freezing. We discussed staying for the parade but that would have made it at least eleven o'clock by the time we left and I still had to write my movie preview article, so we left before.
Behold, my fotoz!
Walking up to the Pumpkin Show. At this point, I realized this was a much bigger deal than I thought it was. There are RIDES.
Kermillions of peoples!
These are the perfect small-town-parade floats. I said to Elizabeth, Rachel's friend from Circleville, that if I were directing a film and had my production designer fabricate the perfect small-town-festival, it would look exactly like this, and their parade floats would be these.
Note that the cornucopia of God's Bounty seems to be bursting forth from the chest of Jesus like in "Alien."
Me with the fourth biggest pumpkin. The top three pumpkins had already been moved to their float so we didn't see them.
Them are some big punkins.
The Tower of Punkins! This is a yearly tradition.
Pretty sunset over Punkins.
This bakery makes the World's Biggest Punkin Pie every year. One year they made it so big because someone else had broken their record that they had to move it outdoors into a tent.
Homeowners are serious about Halloween around here.
Men who are drumming.
I liked this picture a lot so here it is.
There was an art exhibit with paintings and photography and cooking and baking and here, punkin decorating! I was surprised there wasn't punkin CARVING, though.
More Extreme Halloween Makeover.
I had been imagining a quaint little small-town festival, a few city blocks, with some pumpkins with ribbons on them, maybe the Junior League selling lemonade and crullers. Boy, was I wrong. It was HUGE. Twelve city blocks, jam-packed with artisans and vendors and exhibits and, I swear to God, every single fair-food vendor in the Midwest. I have been to a lot of fairs and I have never seen so many food vendors, ever. There were lots of choices for pumpkin eatables. Pumpkin burgers, pumpkin pie (of course), pumpkin donuts, pumpkin chili, pumpkin cream puffs, pumpkin waffles, pumpkin pop corn...Rachel even got a corn dog with pumpkin smeared all over it.
Of course the centerpiece is the Giant Pumpkin, this year's champ weighed 1300 pounds. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time. It was cool but not freezing. We discussed staying for the parade but that would have made it at least eleven o'clock by the time we left and I still had to write my movie preview article, so we left before.
Behold, my fotoz!
Walking up to the Pumpkin Show. At this point, I realized this was a much bigger deal than I thought it was. There are RIDES.
Kermillions of peoples!
These are the perfect small-town-parade floats. I said to Elizabeth, Rachel's friend from Circleville, that if I were directing a film and had my production designer fabricate the perfect small-town-festival, it would look exactly like this, and their parade floats would be these.
Note that the cornucopia of God's Bounty seems to be bursting forth from the chest of Jesus like in "Alien."
Me with the fourth biggest pumpkin. The top three pumpkins had already been moved to their float so we didn't see them.
Them are some big punkins.
The Tower of Punkins! This is a yearly tradition.
Pretty sunset over Punkins.
This bakery makes the World's Biggest Punkin Pie every year. One year they made it so big because someone else had broken their record that they had to move it outdoors into a tent.
Homeowners are serious about Halloween around here.
Men who are drumming.
I liked this picture a lot so here it is.
There was an art exhibit with paintings and photography and cooking and baking and here, punkin decorating! I was surprised there wasn't punkin CARVING, though.
More Extreme Halloween Makeover.