Street Fair!

Today was the 40th University District Street Fair.  Perfect weather - hot, sunny, dry.

The place was PACKED. Massive crowds. I had forgotten how crowded this thing gets - I used to live on one of the Street Fair streets, and the Street Fair weekend was always hellish. I'd hole up in my windowless closet just to get away from the steel drum band outside my windows that played 12 hours a day and only know about 10 songs total.  That and the smell from the food booths, all day and all night, was just insane. I couldn't eat all weekend, it would make me ill to breath that in all day long.

Thank goodness I live on the other side of the city now. I haven't been back for the Fair in about 15 years. So this was a nice stroll - well, shuffling shoving creeping through a mass of hot sweaty crabby humanity stroll - down Memory Lane.

This thing is so big, you need maps!

There are also lots of street performers at the Street Fair. This guy was supposedly some entertainer of some sort, but all I heard/saw him do in all the time I was near him was tell many many very very bad jokes. Very bad.

And while there are the lovely Seattle food booths like fresh salmon, shellfish, wild berries, local restaurants, organic food etc, what's a Street Fair without:

And when you got too hot and tired, you could head off east on a sidestreet, cross 15th, and go sprawl in the shade on the University of Washington campus:

Alas, I had to leave the sun and fun and head down to the sub-basement for work. Only.... why are the officially-named "Basement" and "Sub-basement" floors labeled "C" and "M"??!

Comments

[Aponi]

Thanks for making me happy that I didn't go! There are reasons that I live on an island - LOL!

[cirocco]

I remember when you lived in the Toothache Gargoyle building! I was just thinking about that yesterday... at Street Fair, as I looked at the Toothache Gargoyles while people around me gorged on funnel cakes.

That elevator pad reminds me of the "Arrested Development" episode where George Michael is freaking out after visiting his dismembered uncle Buster in the hospital. Michael puts him in the elevator, presses the "M" button, and says reassuringly, "Main floor, son. Nothing scary there!" George Michael then winds up trapped on the Morgue level.