Money For Nothing

We finally made it to the Annual Cherry Festival in Beaumont. Ca that I have been talking about wanting to go see, we missed it last year and I am glad we made it this year. Since about 1919 this festival has been going on in Beaumont to honor the Cherry growers of the area, the festival includes everything from a parade to food vendors, carnival rides to good music, idiots to security, and best of all family and friends getting together for a really good time.

The festival started on the third and lasts until Sunday, we finally made our way over there last night, finding a parking space was a challenge but we lucked out and only had to walk about a block to the entrance, actually caught someone leaving just in time to keep their parking space from getting lonely. They say about 40,000 people were expected and by the time we got ready to leave I think they were all there.

We walked the whole park going through nearly all the vendors booths, I did my best to keep Cindy from checking out all the food vendors but why do you go somewhere like this without hitting some of the food vendors. The Cherry Lemonade was awesome I can’t say I have ever tasted it before but it was very good.

One of the items for sale I have not seen before the lady called a Vent Stress Ball, it was in the shape of a large mouse or small rat, she slammed it as hard as she could on to the table and it made a loud splat sound and almost flattened out completely into a large mess that completely took us by surprise, next thing you know it was forming back into it’s original shape so you could splat it again, we went through the games and paid five dollars for three frogs that you were to attempt to land in a bowl in the middle of the little pond, the trick was the frog is on a platform and you have to hit a rubber piece below it with a hammer to launch it into the pond, Cindy’s last frog landed right in the middle of the bowl then all of a sudden jumped right out and into the water, the argument was made that the frog was in the bowl but the lady in charge of the game said “I see no frog in the bowl” anyways Cindy ended up with a small stuffed dolphin that will go into the bag of stuff for Benjamin once he gets here.

We made our way toward the stage area to listen to whichever band was playing as the sound from where we were sounded pretty good, the closer we got I started recognizing the sound, I told Cindy “That sounds just like Eddie Money” and once we got closer there was no place to stand much less get close enough to see, we walked up on the grass next to the stage so we could watch the band through the amplifiers, it was pretty neat to actually get that close to Eddie Money because he put on one heck of a show and the cost was free, there were no Dire Straits but this Money For Nothing was something I would have paid for, the man standing next to us stated “If this wasn’t a free concert we would be in one hundred dollar seats right now, it was excellent.

Eddie Money Free Concert

(the view was clearer than the pictures show)

Now for the idiot part, on our way out we could hear behind us “Coming Through, Coming Through) we looked back to see two police officers with a very large Hispanic man in handcuffs he was yelling obscenities at the top of his lungs and was being followed by what appeared to be his whole family, I am not sure what he had done but it was just enough to get him thrown out rather than arrested, as we made it to the gate the officers were coming back across the street when they all of a sudden stopped in the middle and yes you guessed it about half a block behind them here he comes back with family in tow still yelling at the officers, I’ll @*%# you up, I ain’t nobody’s B%*$#, and you are only doing this because I’m Mexican!! this guy was so tough and intimidating that when the officer said absolutely nothing but pointed down the street this guy turned and went that direction still yelling but leaving like he was told, I felt sorry for his kids who had to witness him act like an idiot.

That was this years Cherry Festival from our viewpoint and had I checked the batteries in my camera beforehand I would have had more pictures for you but there is always next year.