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It's the Great Pumpkin Festival, Charlie Brown!
The 36th annual Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival kicked off Saturday morning to much fanfare and a crapload of pumpkins and pumpkin paraphenalia. Several blocks of the fog-shrouded farming community-cum-tourist giftshop's Main Street were closed to cars and packed with vendor booths and festival-goers.
"Oh look dear, your mother will just love this set of pumpkin-shaped doilies . . ."
Despite the timely re-opening of Devil's Slide in August, the crowds seemed much smaller than in recent years. Maybe it was the overcast skies and chilly temps, or maybe it's the fact that once you've seen one 700-pound pumpkin, you've seen them all. Or maybe people just decided to stay home and get their fill of elephumpkintitis on Discovery Channel's MythBusters.
Oh, the humanity.
Supposedly, 250,000 people make the trip over the hill to the "Pumpkin Capital of the World" every year, causing giant pumpkin-size headaches for visitors and locals alike. But traffic wasn't that bad on Saturday, parking was ample, and everybody seemed in high spirits.
By typical weekend Half Moon Bay standards, festival traffic wasn't that bad.
The vending was predictably gratuitous. From pumpkin tie-dyes to seascape photography to plastic toys, it seemed like every person with a pottery wheel or a knack for twisting Juicyfruit wrappers into holiday wreaths had a sales booth. Some stuff seemed unique to the Coastside, or at least had some connection to pumpkins. But there seemed to be a preponderance of "vendies" (professional, traveling festival vendors) selling generic crap the likes of which can be found at every craft festival from here to Martha's Vineyard.
Because nothing says pumpkins like dogs playing poker.
Though locals may be split on whether the festival is a good thing for HMB, everybody agrees that the Pumpkin Festival is a Half Moon Bay original. Eat your heart out Gilroy!
Embattled Speaker of the House Dennis "Bob's Big Boy" Hastert showed up and treated the crowd to one of his signature rousing oratories. -- Photo of the Big Pumpkin by Lil' Punkin