Feathered Hats, Cream Puffs, and Lederhosen

Because my husband won tickets to the German American Festival over the radio, we traveled to Oregon, Ohio yesterday afternoon. Parking for the festival was in a large field. We have had so much rain of late, that the field was quite muddy in places. We had to walk a short way across the field to get to the festival. This photo below was taken as we were walking through the field where the cars were parked. Ahead you can see a woman dressed in a traditional German costume.
At the entrance to the festival was a giant inflated beer bottle. It seemed like a good place for a photo, so my husband took a picture of me standing next to it. It was very windy yesterday and my hair was whipping around my face all a whirl. It was driving me crazy. Because I have naturally curly hair, it easily becomes unruly in windy weather or when humidity levels are high, both of which we had here yesterday. (When I was a little girl, my mother often told me that I have hair like the wild women of Borneo because of its unruliness.)

So please ignore my messy hair and look at the giant beer bottle instead.

Here's another shot of the giant inflatable beer bottle from a different angle.

We walked around for a while just taking in the sights and doing some people watching. There were quite a few people there dressed in costumes and traditional German/Swiss/Bavarian garb. There were lots of men wearing lederhosen and little hats with feathers on the side. Many women wore traditional dresses and aprons as well.

Quite a few people were wearing leis made from orange flowers around their necks. I'm not sure what the significance of that was, but they were pretty popular.

I liked this lady's red hat.

People were eating and drinking and strolling around. There were bands in several different areas playing music. Wooden dance floors were set up on the ground under huge tents where the bands were playing and people were doing clog and polka dances.

This man in the red shirt was eating a potato pancake with applesauce and sour cream.

This is one of the women who was working at one of the food booths.

There was a lady dressed as a clown that was walking around. She is in the middle here in the photo below past the woman in the traditional dress.

It was hard to take pictures because it was crowded there and people kept milling about. There was a man there wearing a chicken hat that made me laugh. I wanted to get his picture, but I lost him in the crowd. He literally looked like he had a white chicken sitting on his head. It looked something like this, but the chicken looked much more realistic on the hat he was wearing. I'm not sure what wearing a chicken hat has to do with celebrating the German American culture, but it made me laugh.

Here's another guy in lederhosen and a little cap with a feather on the side.

We took a break to eat and had some bratwurst and German potato salad.

Next up was a cream puff with Bavarian cream filling on the inside and whipped cream, cherries, and chocolate syrup over the top for dessert. It was YUMMY!

Beer is, of course, one of the highlights of the festival. I don't drink beer myself (or any other alcoholic beverage for that matter), but my husband had a boot of beer with his meal. I had a bottled water instead.

This tall totem pole tower was next to where the main band was playing and where there was a lot of dancing going on.

This little blond tyke made me smile. He was pulling the red wagon which is much bigger than he is as you can see. He was focusing so much on pulling the wagon that he wasn't watching where he was going. He kept running into people as he went along. I imagine the wagon was brought along for him to ride in rather than for him to pull, but oftentimes the plans that parents make are changed by the children that they have.

They had a tent where they were offering free souvenir photos to those who wanted them. They had us stand against a green wall and then a computer added the Glockenspiel background before it was printed out. I'm still rocking the "wild woman of Borneo" hair, unfortunately. (I don't have a scanner, so this is actually a picture of a picture.)

One more look back at the giant inflatable beer bottle as we left.

We bought some sugared roasted almonds on the way out of the festival. (Today it is back to grilled chicken and salads after yesterday's calorie-laden and not very healthy foods feasting!--ha!)

It was getting dark and the sky was clouding over as we drove back home last night.

I took a couple of short videos of the music and dancing we saw there. We didn't do any dancing ourselves, but it was fun to watch the others and to listen to the bands. This band was up on a platform while the dancers were on the floor below.

This band and dancing area was outside without a roof over it and was much smaller than the first one. All ages were dancing and having fun.

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It seems fitting somehow to end with this poster as a thought for the day.