If you are (as I like to imagine) an avid reader of my writing, then you will know that (in addition to buying touristy sweaters and doing random vacation activities) I live in Tourist-Town.
At the end of each summer season Maine does this thing where it attempts to grasp all the tourists by the seat of their pants and hold them in the state for another few weeks. It does this by turning into shades of red and orange and gold. My particular town takes this desperation a step or two further. It hosts a pumpkin festival.
At the height of PumpkinFest each local establishment has a large pumpkin placed outside its entrance. They paint and carve their pumpkins into crazy, silly, artistic masterpieces. One was a puffin. One was a lumber delivery truck. One was a toilet with a plunger in it.
I stepped out my front door this morning, in my new black flats, into a pile of leaves. The woman across the street was having a yard sale in order to take advantage of all the extra traffic in town. She tried to sell me a vintage wedding dress in dupioni silk with buttons to the wrist. Also cashmere sweaters.
I then walked through town to see all the sights. I first saw a gaggle of children in line for the pumpkin shaped bouncy house. There was face-painting. There was kettlecorn. Someone had carved several pumpkins into the shape of the snowman from Frozen.
I then walked down main street and saw a pumpkin with a paisley print, a pumpkin with a beak, and a pumpkin currently being carved with a cluster of onlookers. It was very hard for me to push several of them out of the way to get through with my iPhone so I could record the craft for you.
Confession: I don’t own an iPhone. I borrowed my husband’s iPhone because I dropped my own smart phone too many times and now the camera has a constant fuzzy kind of filter. I’m going to put a new phone on my Christmas List. I have an upgrade.
Also while downtown I bought organic, freshly-grilled, locally-raised, grass-fed cheeseburgers cooked by a gourmet chef on the side of the road. I wouldn’t taken a photo for you but my fingers were greasy and my mouth was full and I forgot.
On my way back home I paused to take a photo so that you too could appreciate Tourist-Town in the Fall.
I think it cleans up nice.
Anna Joy Muether, a graduate of Grove City College, is a twenty-something romantic, lover-of-rain, lover-of-chocolate, and lover-of-rocky-coastlines. She lives in Maine with her husband, and blogs at Anna’s Joy.