Brinnon Shrimp Festival

H has all the pictures. I need to recharge my camera battery.

We had agreed to meet at her place at 9am and have a road trip to the Olympic Peninsula.

So I rolled in around 10am with some breakfast from Tony's Deli, and we putzed around for a while, wondering whether to go to Port Townsend, Port Orchard, or Port Angeles. Sigh. I followed some links on the SayWA website to Port Townsend, which recommended the Brinnon Shrimp Festival, happening as we speak. We pulled up a ferry schedule and took the next boat to Winslow.

The ferry crossing was lovely. There was congestion in Poulsbo, of course. We got to Brinnon around two, and we were pretty hungry by then. There were tents set up in a 'double H' formation; a picnic table area hemmed in by a row of food vendors, a beer garden-tent, a stage-tent with a guy singing some country music (for HOURS this guy sang without a break), and behind that, I think we saw a pony ride and a big slide.

H and I didn't actually see any Hood Canal Spotted Shrimp. Maybe they sold out. We parked, split a bratwurst, and then walked down the street to the Brinnon General Store for some cash, and maybe a hat, because it started to rain. They didn't have any hats.

So we walked back to the festival, and the rain wasn't letting up. The famous belt-sander races were rained out. The fresh-cut grass smell was turning into the wet pasture smell.

That didn't stop us from buying two elephant ears (one with cinnamon, the other with frosting), under-cooked oysters, roasted corn, hand dipped ice cream bars, and an iced tea. H bought herself some steel dangly earrings from the Amway lady and I broke down and bought a trucker hat with a tractor on it.

H and I were surprised to see so many people of color out in Brinnon that day, but we should remember that all brown people love shrimp. Shrimp unites us all. I saw Filipinos, Chinese people, some Mexican vendors, East Indians, Africans, and African Americans. And the White people, can't forget them.

Anyway, it rained the whole time, and I resolved to buy a rain hat and umbrella. We bought a bag of spicey cashews on the way out, and then drove back to Seattle, with a pitstop at a Starbucks in Poulsbo.

We went to REI, and I bought a $50 rain hat, a 'Seattle Sombrero' made out of Al Gortex. It's orange, to match my new orange book bag. Funny, huh! Anyway the best part was that I had a $25 member refund coming to me from REI, so that $50 hat was %50 off.


After that we had dinner at Musashi, and then went back to H's place to film my music video.