WHEN? Thursday · October 9
WHERE? Gulf Shores, Alabama · find us on the map
WHY? 37th Annual National Shrimp Festival
From the website:"The Annual National Shrimp Festival is held each year during the second full weekend in October on the beautiful beaches of Gulf Shores, Alabama. The Festival is one of the nation’s premier outdoor festivals featuring over 300 vendors that offer fine art, arts and crafts, a retail marketplace and of course, SHRIMP!!"
We chose to attend this popular area event on Thursday to avoid weekend crowds. Attendance was reasonably heavy even before the weekend, so we rode the convenient Festival Shuttle, which put us out right at the front gate. How's that for good service?
The first booth that caught our attention featured Native American music and dancing, where we observed their art and dress with a large audience. Although it wasn't extremely hot, we certainly didn't envy them with so many clothes on dancing in the hot sun. We both recalled a similar performance at Devils Tower last summer.
It was lunchtime when we arrived, so we strolled down the booth-lined midway in search of food. We came across a friend who recommended a special seafood-on-French-bread sandwich that started with a P, and looked hard for it as we neared the Pink Pony, where it was supposed to be. Having not found it, we settled on a small basket of fried shrimp at Doc's booth. We went to the back side of the food booth where a boardwalk with benches allowed us to enjoy our shrimp while looking out at the beach and waves.
More:
| Since we hadn't visited the recently-opened Hangout right at the entrance to the festival, we stopped in to check it out. A huge ceiling fan like none we had ever seen caught our attention there, and we snapped this photo of it. |  |
| Wendell noticed this festivalgoer's t-shirt that shared her political message. For those who are unfamiliar with the whole Alabama scene, Sarah Palin's likeness is wearing a University of Alabama lapel pin and a Bear Bryant houndstooth fedora. Roll Tide! |  |
Best of the fest:
Just as we were thinking about calling it a day, live music began playing from a nearby beverage tent. Like following our noses, only in this case our ears, we quickly found Top Hat & Jackie. We took advantage of the folding chairs and sat down to enjoy them.
See our photos on flickr:
2008 Shrimp Festival
I think Pink Pony is the name of a strip club in Memphis.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the P-sandwich was a panini?
I think I may have found one such Pink Pony when I was looking for a link to the one in Gulf Shores. People familiar with the area know where it is: Pink Pony Pub
ReplyDelete