The 34th annual festival has grown over the years into an event which draws approximately 20,000 people over 2 days. (By the way, Banner Elk is normally a town of about 1,500) People even come from nearby states to race the infamous Woolly Worms. Folklore has it that Woolly Worms can predict the severity of the upcoming winter. The overall winner of the races is the one the prediction is made by. (You can look it up on Wikipedia) Over a thousand worms are raced and the winner gets 1,000 bucks!! Anyway...the traffic into town should have been an indication of what we were in for since a 17 mile drive took over an hour. (Let me also mention that I am going to TRY to give a more "cheerful" account of the days highlights. When we decided to go, Jonah and I were both getting over colds and were fit to be tied. Poor Andrew just went down with a sinking ship.)
Jonah was acting silly walking into the event and was having us essentially "drag" him there while holding our hands. Right inside the gate was the first attraction. Woolly Worm cutouts to pose in! Jonah actually wanted to do this so we got some cute pictures. (However he did have a fit when we didn't do it over and over. Another fit happened when we said he couldn't play with the dogs at the "doggie daycare" located right next to the cutouts since it was a daycare and not an attraction.)
After that we headed over to the kids play area. They had a giant inflatable wonderland set up, which happened to be too old for Jonah (and too expensive). We settled for a "wee" right next to it.
We attempted to get some food after that. Again, we were not prepared for the scope of this thing and had to leave to get money before we even started. Fair food prices were in place and a simple bite to eat turned into an undertaking with lackluster results. Jonah did get corn on the cob to eat though, which is always a pleaser. Amongst the tents of the several hundred craft vendors was set up of a couple of women with huge birds. I don't really know what their purpose was...but Jonah is a boy and got to see a big bird.
We figured we should actually see the main event before we left so we went next to the worm-race-area. Again...look at the size of the stage. There are 25-30 worms racing up vertical strings all day long. I don't know if there is any actual training involved or just luck. (Look really closely at the second photo and you can see the worms on the strings.) Jonah and I looked on with wonder.
Since the day was kind of a bust in the worm department, and we had really talked it up in the morning, we decided to buy Jonah one on the way out. (Mind you, you can find these guys everywhere, but vendors make a killing off of them!) In the end I was so glad that we did in fact get Jonah one because he became a little obsessed with it. He was oh so gentle with it and had a lot of playtime with his new friend when he got home. (Next blog!!)
4 comments:
The picture of Jonah with his worm is fantastic! Sounds like you had...fun??? An experience, none the less.
Hy-sterical! I would say "only in North Carolina" but you had similar adventures in Iowa. Clearly the rest of us are missing out. A boy and his woolly worm. Priceless!
Love the picture of Jonah in the wooly worm cut out! Katy Mc
My home town of Vermilion, Ohio, has an annual woollybear caterpillar festival that draws 150,000 people, said to be the largest one-day festival in Ohio. It also predicts the severity of the winter by the colors of its coat. Dad
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