Lorain International Festival

Lorain doesn't have much to brag about, or be proud of, but they sure make up for it with the yearly Lorain International Festival. They do this festival right and it is a blast every year! This year was the 42nd annual festival and the spot lighted country was Puerto Rico.

I don't even know where to begin. First off, when you walk in, the first thing you come across are the food booths. There are booths down both sides of the main entrance. I couldn't take a good enough picture of the whole thing so you could see the vastness of this site! There are 40 food vendors and we did our best to hit as many of them as we could! So you get an idea, here are two pictures that at least show some of the nationalities represented.

Americana and Croatian:

Puerto Rican and Mediterranean:

We walked up and down both sides of the food vendors. Twice! And here is a sampling of what we enjoyed.

Chicken on a stick, Philippines (you can see I started eating it before I took the picture!):

Jambalaya, Creole:

Noodles and Cabbage, Hungary:

Pierogi Pie, Poland:

Potato Pancakes, Russia (these were deep fried and freakin' awesome!):

Funnel Cake, Dutch (duh! can you go to a festival and NOT get one??):

There is just so much to do at the festival besides eat and watch the people. There is a whole section of attractions for kids. This is a new addition this year and judging from the amount of kids in the area, I'd say it was a hit!

They have also in the last few years added some much needed seating. You are welcome to bring your own lawn chairs, which many people did. They have a ton of picnic tables, some out in the sun and others in the shade. Here are a few in the shade.

After we ate, we took a nice walk up and down the river. If you read one of my recent blogs, you may recognize this bridge. The pictures I took of the bridge before came from the other side, facing south. Now we are on the south side, facing north. You can see a few boats pulled up and parked for the festival right here on the Black River!

I don't know why, but I was surprised to see the Coast Guard boat patrolling the waters. There is actually a Coast Guard Station on the other side of the bridge, right by where Ron and I had our picnic the other day. I've just never seen them on the river before. Hey, I like taking pictures, so I took a picture of them!

Just as I turned my back and we went to walk over to the main stage, I heard a siren. Yeah, he was pulling another boat over! That was awesome! I have never seen a boat get pulled over before. Of course, I had to capture the image to share with y'all! I'm not sure what they were pulled over for, but it didn't stop us from yelling "book 'em, Danno!" Yeah, I know, we're corny and most people probably won't even get that joke. But it made us laugh.

As I was saying, over to the main stage. There are events planned all day long on the main stage. During the day, they change out every 30 minutes. Late afternoon and evening, there will be regular concerts. While we were there, we got to see Zoomba from Sheffield Lake. This is a dancing group from the representatives of Puerto Rico. The beat of the music had a lot of people chair dancing, toe tapping or dancing in the grass right along with them!

After the Zoombas, there was some country dancing.

Ok, the best part of the country dancing was this guy that was dancing on the grass in front of the stage. Look in the middle of the picture, he has on his white cowboy hat, light blue pants and a black leather vest. He was up there shaking his money maker for all he was worth! Hey, maybe the guy visited the beer tent a few times too many, I don't know. All I know is that he was having a great time and we were all having a great time watching him! He definitely knew how to get down with his bad self!

It was a great day. I ate too much, watched a ton of people, watched kids get their faces painted (Ron was going to buy a paint on tattoo for me, but I chickened out!), sat and enjoyed the entertainment. If anyone is near Lorain tomorrow, stop by before the event closes.

Admission is $1.00 for adults. I think there is an additional fee for the children's attractions. Of course, you pay for food, but the rest of the entertainment is free. It's well worth the trip to the Black River Landing. They are open on Sunday 12 - 6. If you don't make it this year, mark it on your calendar for next year. It's SO worth the trip! It's usually held on the last weekend before the 4th of July weekend.

If anyone goes on Sunday, look for us! We'll be there!