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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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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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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First of all, folks, allow me to assure you that I haven’t fallen off the face of the Earth. I’ve been going places and seeing things and taking photos, all for your sake (it’s a hard life!), and now I’ve got several blog entries waiting and eager to be written. I’ve also been working on the 2009 Calendar of Events, which I’ll be unveiling shortly.  

Today, let’s talk about the 46th Annual National Championship Indian Pow Wow, one of many Pow Wows around the continent, which I visited at Trader’s Village in Grand Prairie this past weekend.   It was a fascinating cultural event, about which I’m going to have a lot to say — at least two entries’ worth, I suspect. 

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Finally, finally, I’m back. As I mentioned in this entry, I’ve been moving my household, and oh what a pain it’s been. Not only was the move massive — I had to move a whole house full of stuff as well as the leftover stock of my defunct bookstore — the Internet company blundered and turned off my Internet on August 19, A WEEK EARLY. I got it back up a day or so later, but of course all that punched a big hole in my production schedule. I’m still catching up.

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