Friday at "The Fest"

That's right, the annual Smoky Hill River Festival was this weekend.  The 2011 festival will be remembered for it's incredibly perfect weather.  On Friday morning, we showed up to the festival at 8:45 and waited in line for the opening of the gates.  Next year I am going to try to get this craziness on video -- but basically imagine the great American land rushes on a smaller scale.  We sent our two fastest runners to scout out a good spot under shade tree. The rest of us dragged our wagons, coolers, and blankets as fast as we could travel to stake out a big territory with our folding chairs.  This year, we got an incredible spot and we were set up at the park nice and early.  When the festival fired up, we headed over to the kids' tent to watch a musical act.  They had automatic bubble blowers going and I was sure Ledger would love it.  I was wrong -- the noise was too much for him to handle.  So we relocated to the kids' craft tent where Ledger thoroughly enjoyed using stamps, stringing beads, and eating the Froot Loops at the edible necklace station.

Faith and Ledger waiting patiently for the Festival to start.

Faith liked the bubbles... Ledger didn't.

Ledger loved the Froot Loop necklace.

After we were settled back into our circle, we started looking for food -- which is the best part of river fest.  I had the fried soba noodles, but they were only "okay".  Chris had a bodacious burrito and (of course) fried pickles!  Ledger played the part of a seagull and "sampled" everyone else's food.

Ledger samples some nachos.

Ledger samples some fried pickles -- he loved 'em, just like his daddy....

... and aunt Emily too.

Click on the picture above to see a video of Ledger (and others) dancing at the Festival.

We cruised through the crafts displays and then we had to head home to take a nap-time break, but we came back for evening festivities.  The weather was absolutely perfect -- 72 degrees with a little breeze.  There has never been festival with weather this perfect.  Ledger had a great time playing with Faith and Isaac.  The music was good and the final act for the night was Joe's Pet Project, a band founded by some Salina South alumni -- so I was excited to stay and hear them play.  We didn't get to stay through the whole show, since it was waaay past Ledger's bed time, but we still had a great time.