Connecticut Journal, page 2 - The street fair
Yesterday evening, Jac and I went to Willimantic's 3rd Thursday Street Festival - the 3rd Thursday of the month, all through summer and fall, the town closes Main Street to traffic along much of its length, and there is music, food, vendors, and so forth. It was really nice, and I got some pictures that pleased me and represented a lot about the culture here, I believe. We also walked along the riverfront area a bit. Willimantic seems, in just the last decade or so, to have really succeeded in revitalizing a lot of its history into a living part of the town - the two stone edifices that dominate the riverside (the 19th century thread mills) have been refurbished and are now in use once again; one holds upscale commercial offices and business spaces, and the other is artist's spaces and studios, which is a combination I like. Areas of the riverfront can now be seen from parks which talk about the history of the area, and the parks link quite nicely to the "Garden Bridge" - an old bridge that had been scheduled for demolition, but was instead taken over by the local gardening club, and is now a footpath and flower-walk spanning the river below (Willimantic also has another foot bridge, which has the distinction of being the only footbridge in the USA which crosses road, river, and rail in one span.)
I'm starting to recognize a few faces around the town - a few of the women we've seen working at the co-op were playing Ugandan instruments at the African music performance last night. The various vendors last night also made me think that I might get more mileage right now out of paying for tumbling and gymnastics classes than I would for paying for any formal martial arts training, assuming I have the money and desire to pay for any of the above.