We headed to downtown Austin this weekend to enjoy the Old Pecan Street Festival. It is your standard arts and crafts/junk you don’t need festival. Lots of metal work, paintings, photos, weird stuff that you wondered why people would buy etc. Only two booths of pottery. That is kind of a change from the Anacortes Arts and Crafts Festival (sorry they got all uppity and don’t want any crafts now). But there was alligator on a stick. So all in all worth a visit. We didn’t buy anything we didn’t eat. It is now officially confirmed that Wesley likes cotton candy. Not that I’m surprised, but now we know for sure. Jillian didn’t get any cotton candy. It may seem unfair, but keep in mind she didn’t wake up the whole time we were there.
No Pecans in case you were wondering. The origin of the name of the streetfair was a bit of a mystery to me until I poked around on http://www.oldpecanstreetfestival.com. I had assumed that we were talking about nuts here. Pecan pies, sugared pecans, pecan soap, little crafts made out of pecans. Nope. Turns out 6th street (now known for more bars per square foot than anyplace I’ve ever seen) used to be called Pecan St. So you have a festival (street fair) on old Pecan Street.
Considering we are in the “Live Music Capitol of the World” I was a little disappointed by the amount of music. There were a few stages (mostly stuck off out of the way on street ends), but only one busker. 19th Street Red was doing some great blues. He had a pretty good crowd listening and sounded great, but we didn’t run into him until the end of the day and we were all worn out. There was one juggler (okay, but not too impressive) and a couple of clowns that weren’t doing much, but not too much for Wesley. We did look at the pony ride, but decided he would probably just fall off and get another good scrape on his face. Maybe next year. There were also a few tiny carnival rides. But these too were on the large side for Wesley. Its tough being almost two.
The one thing Wesley really did enjoy we couldn’t possibly have planned. We saw a big metal spider made out of motorcycle gas tanks and welded 1.5″ rebar ($2200). Cooler than it sounds. Wesley wanted to climb that thing soooo badly. He was pulling on legs and grabbing its face. When all of a sudden the artist came over, told us that he built it as a ride (the gas tank/body/seat is on springs and swivels). Turns out he has two kids and said we could put Wesley on and let him have some fun. We took lots of photos naturally. The artist (can’t remember his name, darn it) also had some nice metal flowers. They were about 7ft tall and would have looked great in the backyard, but sadly I’d left my $750 to blow at home.
Well, at least I got one good hike in this summer. During my visit to Washington, Wesley and my Mom and I went hiking up Sauk Mt. Such a nice day. The Valley was totally socked in (pun unintended, though appreciated), but the mountain was totally clear, warm, and perfectly still. The swallows were going crazy at the top catching bugs along the rock face. Wesley had a good time and slept on the way down. All in all a perfect morning.
“If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities“ — Voltaire (1694-1778)
Religion absurd? Hmm…
There are lots of reasons to shop at REI. The great product selection, the knowledgeable and friendly staff, their environmentalism, their community activism, their general corporate policies. But here is another. We bought a child carrier for Wesley sometime last summer. Its the kind you can actually do some hiking in and it wasn’t cheap. So I was a little distressed to see it starting to tear in one place. So, here we are in Seattle and we dropped into REI. Without a receipt they looked me up in their system (I’m a member, quite worth the small fee) and gave me a refund of the price I paid. No questions, no problems. I went upstairs to grab a replacement and realized that it was about $80 more than I had paid last year. I admit I had some concerns. Are we about to be out $80? Nope. Without any conjoling or “can I talk to a manager” the guy just says, we’ll just charge you the same price we just refunded so it will all work out. This is a great store. They treat their customers with respect and as importantly give their employees the power to do the right thing without asking for permission. Can you imagine this going at Wal Mart? I might have saved $10 on the initial purchase, but I probably couldn’t have gotten my money back in the first place and if I had I most certainly would have been screwed when I went to buy the new one. So go out their and support good retailers. Shop local, shop friendly, shop responsible places that act the way they should.