Super Saturday!

We did not initially plan for our Saturday to be this fun-filled, mainly due to William being quite sick with a head cold, but things don't always turn out like you plan . . . . they turn out better.

Firstly, let me say that William is such a TROOPER. What a great, sweet, and sacrificing husband he is. I had been saying that I wanted to go to the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival for weeks and even though he had been so sick for several days, he came and didn't complain at all. This was the first time either of us had been to the festival, and we learned some things that we will never repeat. The number one thing is to NOT TAKE Route 92 into town. It is generally the shortest way to get to Half Moon Bay only taking about 40 minutes (according to Google maps) but even by 9 am when we left, it was stop and go traffic about half the way. Thus, it took us 2 hours to get there. Fortunately, the drive is quite lovely through the mountains and then the part that I enjoyed was seeing all of the PUMPKIN farms off to the side of the road. Here is the one that had the most pumpkins on display.

I was completely shocked by just how many PUMPKIN FARMS were along our journey. There would be 2 or 3 right in a row, with signs for more down the road. This is the popular thing here in California while back East in the Boston region, APPLE FARMS are everywhere. Time for a little reminiscing . . . . . . . . . Here are a few fun photos of me and my visiting teaching partner, Kirstin Randall, taking our sweet Bounhome Sirisavath to the Harvard, MA apple farm (yes, there is town- not just a university- named Harvard) about this same time last year. We had such a great time, picking all sorts of delicious apples and especially the INCREDIBLE cider donuts. We kept going back for more- they were hot, fresh, and delicious.


Here is Bounhome enjoying one of these fabulous apples.

Back to 2007. These pumpkin farms not only sell the obvious pumpkins, but they also have things like corn mazes, rides, inflatable jumping areas- its a real event. But, they also have some unusual things- such as iron dinosaurs. Random.

Parking was a mess but with a little driving around and a quick stop to Burger King, we got a great space just a short walk away. They call the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival the "World's Pumpkin Capital" and that's exactly what we saw- the 1st 2nd, 3rd, and 4th biggest pumpkins.

The pumpkin was the highlight of the little parade- here's photos of the 1,524 pound beast. I wonder how many pies and other pumpkin items you can make from it . . . . .

It was quite the interesting parade. In addition to the pumpkin, they had Tony the Tiger and Keebler Elf,

a garbage truck float with kids throwing candy out of it (I definitely wasn't going to battle for that!)

a walking bell choir

a John Deer Tractor pulling another large pumpkin- but nowhere near the beast- only 800 lbs

and a family of skeletons

This little girl definitely had the best view of the parade.

ANOTHER FLASHBACK- the parade reminded me of all of the 4th of July parades that I attended in the small town of Richfield, Utah where my cousins lived. This was the highlight of our vacation, mostly because we would strategically position ourselves to get candy. In the early days of going to the parade, they were very generous with the candy- we got definitely more than we could eat while just sitting there. And let me tell you, we fought hard for that candy. Getting up and running up to the trucks before our seats and then after them. The most coveted prize though was a drink from the Coke truck. I think there was only one year that I ever got one, despite all of the running and begging that I did. For some reason, the candy picked up off the street tasted better than anything we could have bought at the store.

Back to 2007, I was so tempted to revert back to the candy grabbing days as they were again throwing it from the floats. But my William told me that he would buy me all the candy I wanted from the store and that I should let the kids have their turn. The true voice of rationality right there. So no candy was received by me this day.

BUT, I did get an even better treat- PUMPKIN ICE CREAM! It was truly delicious. MMMM- what a great taste of fall. It was worth the drive for that ice cream.

Here are some additional images from the festival-

the portable ATMS (we truly do live in a have it now, commercialized society)

cute kids in costumes

pumkpin hats- I only tried it on for the picture, as it was very overpriced ($20)

the giant partially carved pumpkin- we watched the artist begin to sculpt it right there

And then, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th place pumpkin winners

I have to admit that I was disappointed by the festival because these that I have shown here were the only pumpkins that we saw. The majority was arts and crafts vendors- which is ok, but I was envisioning something more like the Life is Good Pumpkin Festival that goes on in Boston . . . . . .

ANOTHER FLASHBACK. So the same time last year, I ended up going twice to the Boston Life is Good Pumpkin Festival. Now, this is a pumpkin festival!They set the world record for having the most carved and lit pumpkins- over 30,000! Its quite spectacular. I took the adorable little girl that I tutored for Books and Basketball, Esther Jackson, to the festival and we totally had such a great time looking at all of the pumpkins and getting the free food samples.


This was my favorite part was watching their unique carving method- of using a chain saw and an electric screw driver! They were able to process a lot of pumpkins fast- but that's also a lot of pumpkin guts too!

When we were there at 1, they were only at 15,732 on the "ScoreGourd"

I then went back later in the evening with William to see the Commons all lit up with over 30,000 Jack-o-Lanterns- 30,109 to be precise.

Back to 2007. The town of Half Moon Bay actually reminded me alot of Martha's Vineyard with the colorful, gingerbread architecture.
We refused to deal with the traffic back on the 92 again, so we decided again to take a prettier route along the Pacific Coast Highway, the 1, even though it was longer. And it turned out to be well worth it and much less frustrating. Here's some photos of the beach and actual Half Moon Bay-

I also really liked this tree- it just has such a great shape
A beautiful lighthouse off the 1-
And we stopped and watched some KITE SURFING for about 15 minutes. This was the first time that I had seen it and I was really impressed- especially since its hard enough to surf, let alone try to negotiate the kite with the sometimes unpredictable wind. It was really cool, though you sadly cannot tell from the photo where you can only see the kites.
We had meant to just take a road that cuts across the mountains to by pass the traffic, but we passed it since the drive was so beautiful and ended up in Santa Cruz! I had wanted to come here anyways so it worked out great- especially since William is such a trooper. Santa Cruz is another beach town that has a giant boardwalk. The boardwalk eerily reminded me of Lagoon- they had many of the same rides- even the ride through haunted house, magic carpet, sky buckets, rock o wheel (although the names are now different).
We actually didn't end up riding any of the rides- William has been on them all and told me I could ride which ever ones I wanted, but they looked just like Lagoon so I knew that they would only be "ok"- and so I decided that we should get Gilroy Garlic Fries instead (which actually was a mistake since they used fairly large pieces of garlic as seasoning so William and I probably had the equivalent of a whole clove, which was more than we had been anticipating. BUT, it was definitely better than the other option of the deep fried twinkie they had there (William has actually tried it. I am revolted at even the thought of it))
It is just such a fun ambiance to walk around and have the beach right along side of you, complete with sailboats and another lighthouse.
Santa Cruz was definitely unplanned but it was quite a pleasant and worthwhile detour than being stuck in traffic again. And if you think that was the end of our day, we actually drove back to home and went grocery shopping, rented videos, and ate at Chili's (oh- they are having this INCREDIBLE deal right now- for $11 you can get a salad, a side, a half rack of ribs, and ANY dessert! We got the molten cake of course- sooo goooood- and I took the ribs home). So, it was after 8 by the time we got back home after leaving at 9 am and William was so amazing and didn't complain once. And the next day, he was actually much better! I'm sure that all of the fresh air and fun of Super Saturday was the cause of that :-)