Small Festival to Small Festival

My boyfriend came up to Cooperstown for the first time this weekend.  Being a small town area I was hoping to find some interesting things for us to do.  It also being Fall there were a number of Harvest Festivals being advertised all over the place.  I figured going to see these festivals would be a great way to spend a beautiful Saturday afternoon.  

We started off by driving to Fly Creek for the Fly Creek Cider Mill's Apple Fest.  We paid two dollars each and got into the festival area.  The festival itself was not all that impressive, there was a band playing, a raffle and some games, not much else.  It was, however, my first time at the Cider Mill and that was very cool.  We walked in and there were free tasting samples of almost everything, so you walked around the room sampling different sauces and salsa's; you also had the opportunity to taste their apples, cookies, hard cider, wine and of course the regular cider.  Up the stairs it became more of a crafter area and guests had the opportunity to see the cider making process at work.  When we were there a film crew also happened to be present.  The whole cider mill experience took us maybe an hour/hour and a half.  We left with Black Current Apple Wine (very good), apple donuts, cider, and hard cider.  

With still a large chunk of the afternoon before us we decided to held down to Milford for the Garlic Festival.  The Garlic festival was not that large either, especially for a girl who is used to seeing the center of her town shut down for the Apple Harvest Festival.  There was one or two crafters, a couple people selling food made from garlic, some antiques, lessons on how to garlic, and a little stage for performances.  Nothing too exciting, it took us maybe fifteen minutes to get through, and the garlic chocolate chip cookies were not good.  I hear after Jay and I left one of my professors came and started to perform on the stage.  

So the lesson learned was that Cooperstown is a beautiful area with really friendly people, but outside of visiting the Hall of Fame and the Cider Mill it appears that you are in charge of making your own fun.

"Garlic Festival"

 At the "Garlic Festival" looking at soap.

This weekend was the annual Fly Creek Garlic Festival. As new grad students to the area, trying to become acquainted with the community and surrounding areas, we decided it would be a great experience if a group of us went to the Festival.

One of our professors warned us to go with low expectations, and if we did that we would enjoy ourselves. What he should have done was just warned us not to go at all. We spent about 20 minutes on back roads that twisted and turned through the back countryside. All of the scenery was very beautiful, we were however, excited about the garlic festival.

Eventually, after following a trail of yellow signs that read "Garlic" we arrived at a barn on the side of the road stating we had reached the Garlic Festival at Dancing Veggies Farm. The festival was one barn and three tables. One table you could buy garlic, the other you could taste a few recipes and the final you could be soap at. That was the whole festival. And when we piled out of a car, a bunch of twenty-somethings, and they saw a Delaware licence plate the locals gave us quite a look. The locals being about the 5 girls at the table and the 3 people buying garlic.

I'm a girl from Southern New England, and to me festivals are big events, with parades, rides, games, and most importantly food to eat. Not being from the up-state New York area, this was quite a let down. There wasn't even food to buy really, only garlic. I suppose if a person liked garlic it would be a great trip to get some, but otherwise it was not worth our time, except for the fact we got a funny story out of it and we now need to decide if we want to send the new students next year there as a joke.