Lake Superior Sunset

Today’s Earth Day dawned rather wet. It rained so that I was afraid that the earth might drown, but by noon it stopped and we soon headed over to Forest Park and the annual Earth Day festival. At least, the rain succeeded in knocking all of the pollen out of the air that has been bothering me of late. The festival acts like an outdoor mall, with hundreds of little booths, all of which are hawking something. Sometimes it is a cause, but on others it is merchandise. The connection that some of these booths have with Earth Day is pretty obvious, but for others it is a long march down the path of six degrees of separation. The weather had muted today’s turnout, but that’s OK, fewer people made for a more enjoyable experience. Tomorrow will be the pick day and I suspect that the crowds will be there for it. Today’s low turnout made each booth’s hawker all the more desperate to lure you in to listen to their spiel, if not actually buy.

As the years roll-on from that first Earth Day, oh so long ago, each new year’s festival seems to lose a little more of that quirky hippy-dippy atmosphere of the original, only to be supplanted with more and more corporate order. The below pictured van was a notable exception to this corporate creep. The festival’s food booths were a noticeable improvement over the past. Plenty of local restaurants were there representing. We’ll likely return again tomorrow, because we plan on bicycling in the park and the festival’s food would make for a nice lunch stop.  

#VanLife