Tag Archives: tallahassee

I moved to Tallahassee in the fall of 2004, and I’ve been here ever since. 12 years. The first five of those were spent in close orbit to FSU where I was a student, and after graduation, I discovered that there was so much more to this town than I ever imagine. The last few years I have been actively trying to get to know my city. One of the things that Tallahassee is really good at is festivals; we have them all year and for a variety of reasons. This year I decided to participate in one of the festivals sponsored by a local vendor Bradley’s Country Store. Which is actually across the street from Bradley’s Pond where Andy and I got married.   Bradley’s Country store is known best for their locally made sausage; they not only sell them at their shop (pictured above), but they are featured on many local restaurant menus and in the freezer cases at local specialty stores. As you might imagine, that doesn’t hold much interest for me (pescatarian), but they do also have awesome grits and tasty sauces 😉  I honestly wasn’t prepared for how big this thing was. I thought there’d be a few craft booths, some stuff for the kids and a booth for snacks, but man, was I wrong. Crafts, face painters, petting zoos, rock walls, giant blow up slides, and booths selling every fried food imaginable just to name a few of the attractions. We had to park on the far side on one of their fields and walk in; it was crazy. I almost bought one of these hanging pitcher plants. They are carnivorous and actually eat bugs, which while useful is also a little creepy, so I left them to the other festival goers. But don’t feel bad for them, they were selling almost as fast as the vendor could hang them up.One of the other things I loved was all of the dogs people were walking around with. I made a few new friends and got to lavish ear scratches on some truly adorable fur babies.  I thought this old guy looked like the Bandersnatch from Alice in Wonderland. He’s taking a breather in this shot, but he was having a blast digging around in the gravel and snapping at crinkly leaves.  Oh yeah, and there was a stage where local country bands and clogging groups preformed and a horse that was working a sugar cane juicer. It was very much like the down town festivals they had in Lake Wales where I grew up. I was feeling my southern roots quite strongly by the end of the day. All in all, it was a fun experience. It was cool to see yet another piece of Tallahassee culture and learn more about this place I call home. I do think I will have to invest in an additional plaid shirt if I plan on going back next year, or maybe a pair of cowboy boots. You know, to keep things authentic.