Celebrations and reflections...

 L to R Judges for the 38th annual Hunters Moon Festival:Bob of Velo Mer, Bill Gary, MC and owner of GTB, Ben and me. 

We are still here at Green Turtle Bay Resort! AND we got to celebrate with the locals at their Hunters Moon Fall Festival, celebrating Grand Rivers 125th birthday!
We were offered a special treat, we were invited to help judge the floats in the parade...yippee! Not only did we get to attend the parade BUT we essentially had the best seats in the place. We were on a boat, that was made as a prop for the movie River Rat, starring Tommy Lee Jones, sitting right smack in the middle of town.

The River Rat 

I believe the best way to see what towns have to offer is to immerse yourself within the town and the people who reside here. I'm usually a bit shy UNTIL I get to know you, after that I become an extrovert...big time! I love to ask lots of questions about what, where, and when we should dine, tour, and do. This has come in handy while we have been docked for 2-weeks. We have asked our way around this lovely small town and have enjoyed every minute of it.

Believe it or not but Ben is holding a SMALL cone, mine is kid size! We love this place, only been here 5 times! 

The cute town with the great ice cream

So maybe this isn't taken while 'in town' but we explored Lake Barkley for a bit.

While our stay here is coming to an end, we were thrilled to be a part of something so special to this community. Hundreds of people showed up for this festival to enjoy the many crafts and retail vendors lined up along the streets, pancake breakfast, Cake walk (just like when you were in elementary school), costume parade for the little ones, the 30-minute long parade complete with floats (we were already offered money by one of the floats to vote them as the winner), and the evening winded down with live music from a local band called Night Moves Dance Group. We had a blast!!! I'm starting to get a bit emotional about leaving, I'm convinced I have a problem...I keep getting attached to people and then having to leave kinda stinks. However, I am honored to have met all these amazing people. We will have lots of wonderful places to explore and more people to get to know. Until then, I will embrace my time and the experiences we have been given and look forward to the many, many more adventures and friends to meet along the way.

We are excited! 

The winning float! Really creative moonshine still 

Santa's coming to town!

The Mayor

Great parade and we walked away with a stash of candy, score!

Reflecting on our day, we probably would not have experienced this great celebration in quite the same way if we were only here a couple days. I guess you could say we "stopped and smelled the roses"!