Not Strawberry Festival

We've gone on a couple of outings in the last couple weeks. 

First was the Lebanon Strawberry Festival.  Lebanon is about an hour's drive from our house and they host an annual strawberry festival with the world's largest strawberry shortcake, strawberry princesses, and a parade, among other things.  It sounded very festive, and I love strawberries, so we dressed Libby up in a strawberry dress and headed out.  It's one of the only times I can remember going out in Oregon and being disappointed.  It was the worst festival ever!  We passed this huge line of cars waiting to park, and luckily found a shorter way into the parking area.  That is when I became suspicious, because on the way in, we passed a lot of people who were on their way out, and I noticed they weren't carrying any boxes of strawberries.  Then I realized they weren't carrying anything at all.  No keepsakes or souvenirs, not even a popsicle or a Pepsi or anything.  (Pepsi has a distribution center nearby, so everything in Lebanon is Pepsi.)  I thought it was really weird that no one had anything in their hands as they left.  Well, that is because the Lebanon Strawberry Festival is a total misnomer.  Other than the free pieces of strawberry shortcake that were being handed out, there was not a strawberry to be seen.  It was nothing at all like California's Oxnard Strawberry Festival.  There were no farmers, no berries, no strawberry pizza, no strawberry beer, no strawberry anything.  There were a few craft vendors and food vendors, but it was small.  They had a carnival, and karaoke for entertainment.  And I'm not sure what the venue is usually used for, but the parking area was 3x larger than the actual festival, and the festival grounds were gravel.  And it was huge pieces of gravel.  We had brought a stroller and could not use it.  Horrible event, not recommended at all!

This past weekend we stayed overnight in Hood River in the Columbia Gorge, our favorite place.  Again, we found ourselves sorely tempted to try to find a way to move there.  Maybe we will.  Libby and I checked out downtown Hood River while DH went out on his motorcycle.  Here is a picture of his dirty bike after he got back.  I think it is funny that in the background (upper left) you can see an animal's head in the back of the silver truck.