On Friday, I had checked the times for the Strawberry Festival and for Sat & Sun, the booths were to open at 10am. So the folks and I decided that we’d go on Sunday when many folks would be in church. The plan, take one of the shuttle buses from the Meijer parking lot to the festival. The reality? Although the booths opened at 10am, the shuttle service didn’t start until 11am. Whoops! No matter, I drove us toward the festival and found parking at the old Hobart offices – just a short walk across the bridge to the levy where the festival is held. Though dad was a little disappointed he didn’t get to ride a school bus (that’s what they use for the shuttles), the convenience of the parking was worth it.
We got to the levy shortly before 10am, but many booths were already opened. We perused the various crafts and when we got to a booth selling strawberry smoothies, mom & I bought one to share. A few booths down, Panera was selling strawberry danishes (basically cheese danish with sliced strawberries on). A nice breakfast, IMO.
Once we’d been most of the way through the festival, we went down to the lower levy to buy the (now rather over-priced at $8 a dozen) strawberry donuts sold by the Troy Music Boosters. So I only bought a dozen donuts. My favorite lemon/strawberry shake up booth is on the lower levy, so I bought my shake up and we perused the booths there before heading back up.
Deciding what to have for lunch wasn’t easy – lost of wonderful choices. But the booth selling crawfish etouffee won my heart, stomach, and money. I also had to get the strawberry sushi. It was basically strawberry sashimi sliced onto sushi rice. 😉 Very tasty, actually. The folks got lunch as well and let me try their roasted corn on the cob & sammiches (grilled chicken for mom, BBQ beef for dad). Tasty.
I actually bought a few items – unsurprisingly foodstuff. I got some fudge-caramel sauce (for ice cream, etc) that was tasty, some jalapeño jelly (which wasn’t nearly as hot as the habeñero jelly they were also selling), and a huge bag of kettle corn. I’ve eaten about a third of the bag so far. Heh.
We got back to the car at noon, so it was a pretty successful day. We avoided most of the crowd by going early, had decent parking, and got out before it got too warm. We rock at Festivalling!