Gourd-Painting and 5K-Walking

Hello! As promised, read on for exciting information about my weekend!

Friday night's pumpkin fun was a little disappointing initially, to be honest. We were supposed to be painting pumpkins, but all they had were gourds. However, the pumpkin pie and ice cream as a definite plus. For the record, pumpkin pie is always a plus in my book. Gourd painting did turn out to be exciting, though; I met Casper! Casper is a gourd, that I oh-so-creatively painted a smiley face on. I nmed it Casper because of its resemblance to a ghost's shape. Casper the Friendly Gourd. See what I did there?

Casper the Friendly Gourd

Saturday was far more eventful. We lucked out and had amazing weather for our 5K; not a cloud in sight! We started in Battery Park - for those of you not from the Burlington area, it's down by the lake waterfront - went down a few streets I don't know the names of (directions are not my strong suit), walked up to and across Church Street, up Pearl Street, and back down to Battery Park. 

The View from Battery Park

A group of percussionists (loud drums and tambourines) led the walk for a while, all the way up to the end of Church Street. Normally, I would say following a bunch of drummers for that long would drive anyone crazy, but they had the perfect cadence not to be annoying. At any rate, they certainly got the attention of anyone in the area. On Church Street, people stopped to watch us, including those on a walk against animal cruelty (we may have temporarily overpowered Church Street). The anti animal cruelty people had a tiny pig walking with them that was really cute... we had several dogs that I really wanted to adopt. Even though they belonged to other people. 

Surprisingly, people would honk at us from their cars in support, and one woman even ran up to us to give us a monetary donation. Never having participated in a 5K cause walk before, this was light-years better than any reception I could have anticipated. I wasn't expecting to get tomatoes thrown at me, of course, I just didn't think we'd get such a wide show of support. 

While in Burlington, I ate lunch at Bruegger's, a place on Church Street that sells bagels, sandwiches, and coffee. I had an Asiago bagel with pastrami, Swiss, and egg, on it; I was stuffed afterwards and cost under $5! I've eaten there before; if you can manage the (somewhat fast) long line, it's definitely worth it.

I also found a farmer's market that I will hopefully have more about next weekend. It was huge and I did not have enough time to check it out properly.

Overall, a fun weekend was had by everyone. See you next week!
Laura