Watertower Festival

This weekend was Pipestone's annual Watertower Festival. It seems that every town in Minnesota has a festival - I'm convinced it's part of the MN constitution that before your city can be incorporated, you have to set aside some time each year for a big party. For instance, Rochester had RochesterFest this past week, which included lumberjack competitions and a SPAM vendor selling my new favorite fair food: deep fried SPAM curds. The festival that takes the cake and that I have yet to experience is Viola, MN's Gopher Count where they'll still pay you $1.25 per pair of gopher feet you turn in during the festival. I'm sorry, but does this remind anyone else of The Simpsons' Wacking Day episode?

Here in Pipestone, MN, no animals are harmed during the Watertower Festival. Named for the town's castle-like watertower, it seems appropriate that this year's festival theme was "Nursery Rhymes & Fairytales".

The Watertower that Makes it all Possible!

It technically started on Friday night with a street dance. I thought that sounded fun until, by the time Nathan got home from work at 10pm, our downstairs retirement-aged neighbor had declared that he was going down there to get "stone drunk" and the band had stopped playing songs like Black Hole Sun and moved on to imitating dying cats. Needless to say, we decided to sit out the street dance.

The next morning, a parade started at 10am. Glen, the park's superintendent, said they had so many entries that the parade was twice as long as normal - one whole hour. Actually, it reminded me a lot of the Brown Deer 4th of July parade - just with more men in drag. You had your normal community organization floats and high school bands, but Pipestone's parade went one step further to include, liteally, men in tights and giant farm equipment. This entry from Titan Machinery was pretty amazing - yes that is a normal, one-story building in the background!

Titan

Typical Themed Float

Not Everything Was For Kids

Nathan had been in charge of the Pipestone National Monument Float. This was the first time they'd ever entered one and true to its preservation theme his float was minimalist, recyclable and pulled with an electric truck, which topped out at around 27 mph during the parade.

Nathan's Green Float

The one thing I think they'll have to add next year is candy. EVERYONE throws candy at this parade - even the dentists.

Would you accept candy from a guy wearing a gas mask?

After the parade you could head over to the City Hall front lawn for some delicious grilled foods, a flea market, and a lucky spot under the big tent to listen to a teenage Kiss cover band. For lunch we got a pretty good seat watching the fire department's version of Tug O' War, using a barrel hoisted in the air.

Despite the festival, my favorite place in town is still the park. Saturday was the first time I got to see it when it wasn't raining. Even this snapping turtle took advantage of the sunny day.

Next year, I'll make sure we hit the festival rodeo too. Whoever said small towns are boring? They've obviously never been to Pipestone or Medora.