Actually, the real draw was the entertainment. Friday night's free concert featured Lou Gramm. No, we didn't know who that was either. He was the lead singer and song-writer for the 1970 and 1980's group--Foreigner. For anyone that doesn't recognize Foreigner, they were one of the world's best selling bands of all times. When he sang songs like, "I Want to Know What Love Is," "Feels Like the First Time" "Hot-Blooded" and "Cold as Ice," it felt like we were back in high school, hanging out with thousands of our closest friends.
We were back the next morning for the parade, led by the local high school band. Is it just a coincidence that their school color is zucchini green?
We've been to plenty of parades that feature politicians and businesses throwing candy to the crowd. The zucchinifest parade had plenty of candy, and groups handing out free bottles of water on this hot day. But it will always be on Denisa's all-time top parades list because the local Dairy Queen was handing out Dilly Bars. Ice cream is a great parade give-away!
Most of the floats seemed to include the royalty from other local festivals. Just down the road, Reynoldsburg had just crowned a new Tomato Queen.
Next weekend, we plan to be in Milan, Ohio, with over 50,000 people that usually attend their Melon Festival. Ohio certainly knows how to celebrate its fruits and vegetables!
We were actually a little disappointed that there were no zucchinis being tossed to the crowd from passing floats. The information booth was selling fresh zucchini, and zucchini bread of all types. There was Pineapple Z bread, blueberry Z bread, Orange Z bread, Chocolate, and Chocolate Chip Z bread. The food trucks selling their wares on the midway added special items just for the festival. We saw banners for zucchini puffs, zucchini funnel cake, zucchini and cream cheese fried fritters, spiral zucchini chips, and deep fried battered zucchini sticks. They almost made eating your vegetables fun!
There was also a kiosk featuring one of Ohio's most famous citizens--The Buck-I-Guy. He attends all the Ohio State football games, and was out celebrating the zucchini this afternoon. When Mark pointed out that we had a son that graduated from that other OSU school in Oklahoma, suddenly the Buck-I-Guy wasn't quite as friendly.
It was a hot afternoon, and there were no indoor activities at Obetz, so we drove into nearby Columbus for a few hours. A big thunderstorm blew through the state, and we were glad for the cooler air that accompanied it. We were back in Obetz for the evening, and a second round of Zucchinifest concerts. But we also found that there was a car race happening at the Columbus Motor Speedway that shared the parking lot with Zucchinifest.
We joined the local crowd for our first-ever car race. We came to understand why many of the children wear protective ear guards--these cars are loud!
We don't understand all the rules and race protocol, but we knew that when a car spun out and headed the wrong direction, another yellow flag came out. The rain-slickened track probably caused more than the usual number of accidents.
Because of the crazy storm this afternoon, the 7:00 pre-concert was cancelled. They were still drying out equipment long after the 8:30 headline concert was supposed to start. So we got to enjoy the setting sun with several thousand Clint Black fans.
Finally at 9:10, the concert began. It was worth the wait! We recognized almost all of Clint's songs like "When My Ship Comes In," "Nothing But the Tail Lights," "Killing Time," and "Like the Rain." If you were humming those song titles as you read them, you must be a Clint Black fan too. We don't understand how the little community of Obetz can afford to pay for these concerts and make them available for free, but we are loving it!
Towards the end of the concert, we left our seats in the middle of the crowd and headed to the front to see how close we could get. We were surprised that we could get just a few feet from the stage, where we got a good picture.
It was a late night drive back to our camping spot, but we would do it all again. Cheers to our new favorite green vegetable and the Obetz Ohio Zucchinifestival!
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