Festival of the Sun, 2008
Yesterday, I attended the Festival of the Sun, a wine-tasting, beer-sampling, food and music festival held in Old Town, Lansing. I've been attending this festival for a few years now. I look forward to it all year. I always have a great time, and this year may very well have been the best time I've had to date.
The festival goes from 2:00pm to 10:00pm. I got a ride down there with a couple of my uncle's friends who live close to me. (They are the same family that I did portraits for last fall. They hired a sitter while they went to drink wine.) We arrived a little after 3:00pm. The tents were not too crowded, so there were no lines to wait in. I started off with several glasses of pinot grigio from Burgdorf's Winery. (I discovered this winery at this festival last year.) I paced myself and sipped my wine. Little by little, more people showed up. This event was an awesome place for scoping out chicks!
After a couple of hours, my friend, Melissa showed up with a couple of her friends. (Melissa was a student employee at work; I went to her wedding back in January.) A little while later, my cousin Paul showed up with his girlfriend and a bunch of his friends. I also saw a few people I know from work. I bounced around between each group of friends and the music stages. During the 5:00 hour, the place achieved critical mass. There were hundreds of people all having a good time. This was exactly where I wanted to be.
I had about 10 glasses of wine before I finally started to feel drunk. I had made sure to eat breakfast and lunch with a snack in between before I came. Even though I was sipping slowly on a full stomach, I reached a point where I started to feel dizzy. I stopped to drink some water and eat a small bit of food. I started talking to this one woman who also works at MSU in an engineering lab. She had volunteered pouring wine, but she was done with her shift, and she was hanging out. Her name was Charlie (a nickname, I'm sure). She seemed pretty nice. Like me, she was waiting around for Ritmo to play. I decided that I would ask her to dance when they took the stage. There was a while to go before that. I continued to bounce around between groups. Eventually, the people I came with left. I did have a couple more glasses of wine before I stopped drinking altogether. By then, the latin jazz band Ritmo went on stage.
This year, the festival main stage was not under a tent, but out on a grassy hill. This seemed to discourage people from salsa dancing because of the uneven ground. Still, some die-hards gave it a try. When I went to find Charlie to ask her to dance, she was nowhere in sight.
I looked around for somebody else to dance with. I saw one lady, kinda dancing by her self off to the side. I went up to her and asked if she'd like to dance with me. She said yes, and up the hill we went. She says that she likes to dance, but she didn't seem to know any of the basic steps that I had learned, and she couldn't keep up with my pace. At first, it was a little awkward, but I slowed down and did my best to lead her. Eventually, we got into a rhythm and it was fun. The grass was a little slippery, but we didn't fall down. I was winded after one dance. After sitting out the following song, we went up again and danced once more. It was a longer song, and it became a grueling workout! I felt like stopping before it was done, but I forced myself to keep going. (It was more exercise than jogging a mile.) This woman's name was Doris. I couldn't tell for sure, but I think she's older than me (in her 40's?). She didn't appear drunk or anything, but she really leaned a lot closer to me than what I normally expect when dancing with a partner. She wasn't clingy or touchy-feely, but she did seem a lot more flirty than other women I have danced with before. It was kinda nice.
After that 2nd dance, I chatted with her for a little bit. That's when the band played their last song for the night. (It turned out to be a pretty short set.) Even though I had known Doris for less than a half hour, I asked her if I could give her a call some time. I had brought a pen with me, so she wrote down her e-mail address. I gave her my card with e-mail and phone number on it. I did see Charlie again on the way out, but she was talking with a guy. I didn't want to intrude, so I left her alone.
I left the event feeling pretty good. It was a lot of fun, and I got to hang with several friends and drink lots of great wine. I took a few snapshots during the festival. They are in this LJ gallery.