Squirrel Fest 2017!

Well, we got up very, very early yesterday so that we could attend Squirrel Fest in Longview, which is, incidentally, a very lovely place.  It has a lot of parks.  These parks contain many trees.  These trees host many squirrels.  The prime reason for celebrating Squirrel Fest (now in its fourth year) is not the squirrels themselves - they were largely uncooperative - but for the community to show off its squirrel bridges, which span over its rather un-busy streets.  Some of them are kind of neat.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of them.  But believe me, they're neat.

Here's the scene.  It's the center of town.  There are all kinds of booths selling crafts (some squirrel-related, some not) and food and whatnot.  That's the grand old library in the background.

There were lots of signs like this everywhere.

There was a parade.  It lasted less than ten minutes.  Those are two humans dressed as squirrels in the back.

 Here are some young nerds with their attempted robot.  Let's give 'em a hand, folks!  It's Longview.  The co-inventor of the Hula-Hoop was from here.

Here's the lovely Becko with pepper relish of some sort.  It was billed as very hot.  It was not, but it was still tasty.

Here's another grand old thing, the Monticello Hotel, which is still totally in operation.  If you really want a Longview getaway, this is the place to stay.

The squirrel statue.  Meanwhile people zip-lining and rock-wall-climbing and trampolining in the background.  The atmosphere was very festive.  And the squirrel was dressed for it.

We took a tour of the squirrel bridges in this contraption - it's actually a former San Francisco cable car made into a trolley.  I had envisioned that we would putter around in lazy circles, but no.  The driver was really showing us what this thing could do.  So yeah, it was fast and since we were in those outside seats, we were hanging on for dear life.  And that's why I didn't take any squirrel bridge pictures.  We actually did see two squirrels during the tour, but we could only shout at them to use the bridges.  I don't know whether they complied.

That was pretty much it.  While I was gassing up, I noticed that Longview has more than a few functioning phone booths like this one.  Very quaint!

So that's it from Squirrel Fest 2017.  I'm vowing to go again next year.

Oh, and there's an article about it here.  We get quoted and everything.