Dallas / Fort Worth and Me

If anything, the 2009 / 2010 social year for the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex looks to be even busier than the 2008 season. As I did for 2008, I’ll track the events for 2009 and 2010 month by month, and continue to add new events as I find out about them. I’ll attend and write about as many as I can, but of course there are certain times of the year when there’s just so much happening I just can’t make it to everything. That’s where the Skribit voting app on the top right side of the homepage comes into play. You can make suggestions for new events right there, and vote on the ones you’d like me to write about. For those instances in which two events overlap, I’ll pick the one with the most votes to attend.

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Bah. Humbug.

I’m going to warn you before I start that this entry contains crankiness. I’m going to try not to let it affect my review of the Festival itself too badly, but I have to tell you, it’s hard not to, considering how I was treated by the people running it. And I’m good at cranky.

First of all, there are very few pictures here for a simple reason: they wouldn’t let me take any. This is why:

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I recently visited Keller, which is located in Tarrant County between Dallas and Fort Worth, for their yearly Wild Wild West Fest.  Why? Because some kind reader used that Skribit app over there on the right to ask me to! Can’t turn down a kind request like that.  Well, I didn’t know quite what to expect, never having been there before; my only exposure was from the materials on their website, in which they make it clear that the festival’s paid for only from vendor fees, never taxes. That made me wonder if it was worth going so far to what sounded like a podunk event.

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In my last entry, I regaled you all with tales of the delicious Plano Balloon Festival, the 29th iteration of which I attended on Sunday, September 21.  In addition to all the typical festival stuff — you know, free swag, expensive food and drink, pushy newspaper venders, and purveyors or every type of chintz you could imagine — there was also excruciatingly bad karaoke, which I don’t often see or hear (you were supposed to be able to win the karaoke machine). Oh, and there were numerous Balloons of Unusual Size, as well. It was fascinating just watching them get inflated. And as you can see, there was quite a crowd watching this day.

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Last weekend, I caught the tail-end of the EDS Plano Balloon Festival. This is one of cool events that keeps the city of Plano on the map, and it’s one of the highlights of the local social year. I’ve only gone once before — it was back in the 1990s, and though I was alone, I had a pretty good time. See, this isn’t just a balloon exhibition; as with most festivals, there are vendors galore, selling everything from Pampered Chef products to vacations in the Cayman Islands. Last time I went, I bought a couple of nice hand-crafted deck chairs for the patio that lasted for about ten years. Wish I could remember the vendor I bought them from — they were a good deal, and I could use some more!

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On September 19, I attended an unusual event: the Addison Oktoberfest, a classic beer festival  that’s supposed to be the biggest outside of Munich. While I didn’t think it was all that huge, it was big enough, and we had a good time. Aside from a couple of tastings, though, we didn’t have any beer; it was simply too expensive. It was more expensive than airport beer, and that’s expensive indeed.

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In Part I of this entry, I treated you to my first impressions of Grapevine’s Grapefest, a festival that was new to me, despite having lived in DFW for more than 15 years.  Truth is, I don’t get over to Grapevine much, except to go to the Mall — and I’ve only been there a few times.

When last I left you, we were about halfway down the rather lengthy midway , very close to the town square. It included an attractive, old-fashioned gazebo style band shell, and this lovely piece of art, though I have to admit that this person got a better picture than I — they got the band shell in there, anyhow.

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On September 14, I attended one of the better festivals I’ve been to this year: the City of Grapevine’s annual Grapefest. That’s not just my opinion, incidentally; other reviewers agree! In addition to this great festival (which was surprisingly family oriented, despite the wine orientation), Grapevine already has a lot of things going for it, among them its railroad history, its quaint downtown, and of course the fantastic Grapevine Mills Mall (which I’ll get to very soon).

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All righty then! Let’s wrap this three-parter up with the dancing that makes a Pow Wow like this so enjoyable. I have to admit that I’m not very well versed on the dances themselves, or on the songs that go with them, so most of this entry is going to be devoted to the photos. I took about a hundred of them, and in this entry, I’ll present the best ten percent or so.

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Welcome back, Gentle Reader! Last entry, I introduced you to the 46th Annual Nation Championship Indian Pow Wow, which was so splendiferous that I actually visited it on two consecutive days (September 6-7).  Now, an event this big isn’t something you can easily review in a single entry, and so I didn’t even try. In fact, it’s gonna take three.

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