Seymour, Indiana - OKTOBERFEST 2005 - Mellencamp Country - PART 1 ADDED 10/2 About This Page:

[TinkerBelz]

I decided to do a silly little "trip report" of our families adventures at our city's annual Oktoberfest. Why is our Oktoberfest better than anyone elses? Well, hmmm, let's see. Our itty bitty town is famous for birthing John Mellencamp. About everyone around here knows someone from the family. Even our last mailperson was his aunt or maybe it was his 2nd cousin's wife's mother. But she WAS a Mellencamp. Oh and my daughter's 6th grade Math teacher was Indiana’s senator's wife...oh wait, she's not related to Mellencamp... but believe me when I say there are a lot of Mellencamps around here.

We also own the honor of having the very first train robbery. We have train tracks that run both north and south and east and west right through the middle of town. And guess what rolled right through town during the festival tonight!! A train. That was something else. Ok, it was just a plain old train, but exciting nonetheless.

And it's the largest Oktoberfest in our state. Which says a lot, when Indianapolis - which is the in the top 20 of the largest cities in the US doesn't even try to compete with us....hehehe

So we went and took some pictures. Will give you rating and food reviews and just have a bit of fun. We hope you enjoy it as we enjoy being silly in our picture taking. This wasn't Disney you know and had many a weird look at our picture taking moments!! I do believe we may have been the ONLY people taking pictures. LOL

But the most exciting reason of all was that it was a our LAST milestone before our Disney trip this November. You see, we started paying on this trip LAST summer and the countdown started at over 400 days. But time been a ticking and we have less than 40 days now!! Wooooo Hoooo We needed something to bide the time away, so without further ado......

OKTOBERFEST 2005 - Mellencamp Country begins.....

Pre-trip report

Dates:
Wednesday, September 28th - Saturday, October 1st
Adventurers:
Me, Yvonne (39 and holding until October 22nd) and DH, Sam (49, holding on for life) and Kassie (13, holding on to her sanity with her crazy mother - of whom she declares is "FAR to FRIENDLY")

Itinerary

Wednesday, September 28th:
Set-up groupies - Yvonne and Kassie go over after Sam leaves for work to watch them set up the booths.

Thursday, September 29th:
Sam takes the day off to go to the opening day of Oktoberfest - of which he HATES. LOL More of this terrible tale later.

Friday, September 30th:
Quick run to eat and people watch

Saturday, October 1st:
Last day. Kassie goes twice. Once with her dad. Then again with her crazy mother.

[lauren-roxy]

Can't wait to read all about it Yvonne!!

[loobyoxlip]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, it was just a plain old train, but exciting nonetheless

[/ QUOTE ]

You're too funny, Yvonne!

[TinkerBelz]

Wednesday, September 28th - Part One - Watching the Set-Up and the Scary Small Town Carnival

Sam left for work at 3:40 with no incident. I guess there never is any incident - other than when he forgets to say "I love you" back when he leaves for work and I keep hollaring it out the door until he says it back.

I sat at the computer after he left for work and worked on our business stuff. Wednesday is our busiest day of the week and I wanted to be totally ready to get started on the bulk of my work when we came back.

Then I went off to put my make-up on (a MUST) and do my hair and get dressed - don't ask and we FINALLY left the house at about 6:45pm. By this time it was starting to get dark and because my daughter and I are not picture takers normally, many of them are dark. You'll have to bear with us. We finally got things figured out by Saturday. LOL

We tried to take a picture of only one small part of downtown and a parking lot downtown. You can't really see how big the downtown area is - but it's the best we could do...LOL


Parking Lot and Part of Downtown

They always block off the main streets about 3 blocks both north and south and east and west.

It was already hard to find a parking spot but we finally managed and we started to walk from East to West through downtown. Here is the side we normally start at:


Monster Burgers was the 1st booth on the left and the Cake Walk Booth to the right

When we came to the main intersection we decided to started to stroll down where the crafts booth were going North on the highway. But the streets were full of half put together booths so we gave up and went back south on that street. As we got to the main intersection the smells of bratwurst and sauerkraut filled our nostrils. A few food booths were open. It was their choice to be open a day early or not, but someone had to feed the workers!! While there we took a few pictures:


They cover the regular street signs and put these cute German street signs up




Oktoberfest Sign on all the street corners

At this point we walked south on the main street and passed my favorite Deli in town. I go there about once or twice a week to get homemade - egg salad, chicken salad, 3 bean salad, potato salad and homemade soup. Before I had my weight loss surgery I bought cakes, cookies, fudge, lemon bars and brownies. We tried to get a picture of it, but again, our picture taking skills took over and the picture was DARK - too dark to see anything. So it went to the recycle bin.

I had to stop at the ATM to make a deposit and the main branch's ATM is not reachable during Oktoberfest as it's on one of the streets that is blocked. So we walked up to the "drive-up" ATM and I made my deposit. Here's a picture my daughter took of me making the deposit - or posing before the deposit!



After the bank experience we walked over to the carnival (took the "back" roads) and took a few pictures. The 2nd is a picture of the mini-ferris wheel. Doesn't it look terrifying? I HATE ferris wheels and when and if I ever get on one I threaten my family within an inch of their lives to not move or breath. I don't want that thing swinging because I'm sure I'll fall out and die to my death. My daughter says "but if you fall from the mini-ferris wheel you won't fall far". I told her that was beside the point! LOL





We picked up a small popcorn ($2.50) and snacked on that. We walked around the small carnival and looked at the mini-rollar coaster. Sam warned me "Don't ride a single ride". I guess 20 years ago he had been a carnie and he said they are SO totally unsafe. Happily Kassie rarely wants to ride these and she knew Disney was coming up in a month so she wasn't interested. Not even in the games.

We ran into a few friends of hers and chatted for a little bit and then ran into some of Kassie's friends parents. They seemed stressed out as they were watching several friends little kids and were having a hard time keeping up with them all.

We headed over to our traditional "Oktoberfest is not offically open yet - Wednesday Night Meal". Which consists of a Corn Dog for me ($2.00) - which I literally eat once a year on the Wednesday night before the Fest starts, Cheese Sticks to share ($2.50) and Chicken Fingers for Kassie ($3.50). Here's a picture of the booth we bought our dinner:



We decided to go ahead and take our food home and eat it (we live about 4 blocks away - and can hear the noise at night - people talking, music, etc.)

Corn Dog Stand Me DD
Popcorn..................6.5 4.5
Cheese Sticks............6 6
Main course..............6 3
Atmosphere...............5 7
Service..................6 6
Value for money..........3 2
Average:.................5.4 4.75

The weather today was comfortable slightly humid - 78 degrees
The best thing today, the setting up of Oktoberfest
The worst thing today was Everything wasn't opened up yet for business
The funniest thing today was Kassie and I walking around talking about all the food we were going to try in the next several days
Today we tried Popcorn for the 1st time at Oktoberfest
And the result was It was saltier than we liked but overall pretty good.
The most magical moment was driving by the 1st time around looking for a parking space and seeing all the booths and banners.

Next: “So if we walk through really quick can we go home?”

[Colexis Mom]

Great start Yvonne More please

[DawnDenise]

Very cool Yvonne!! Looking forward to more!!

[lauren-roxy]

Sounds like a great start Yvonne!! I am the same way on the ferris wheel, everyone knows not to move at all!! Can't wait to read more!!

[loobyoxlip]

You didn't play the cake walk? I love the cake walk!!