Sugar Creek

This is my favorite weekend of the summer, the Sugar Creeks Arts Festival in downtown (not "uptown", I will never say "uptown") Normal. It's a juried art fair (not cheap stuff). This year is a special one, too. It's the 150th birthday of Illinois State University. In past years the festival has covered two downtown streets, but a lot is torn up down there because of massive construction and renewal projects going on. A lot of the former parking is gone now, so it was necessary to rearrange the festival a bit to accomodate visitors. Because ISU wanted to draw attention to its birthday, too, much of the expanded festival this year is on the In Exchange sculpture garden and on the quad, and ISU opened several of its parking lots free for the festival. There are 60 new vendors (210 all together), two music stages, lots of food. Normally, this weekend features one blistery hot day and one day where it pours down rain. This year, though, both days promise to be sticky hot -- in the 90's. The quad portion of the festival was absolute heaven under the trees, and the Shakespeare Festival performed a Green Show on the steps of Hovey Hall. (The Green Show is a brief, funny version of whatever the current night's play is.) I managed to buy some things for upcoming birthdays and other events, and I bought myself a beautiful Pegasus made out of woven rope (hard to describe).

Tonight is my second Illinois Shakespeare performance, "Much Ado About Nothing". Last week, for "Henry V", it was perfect weather. Tonight it's supposed to cool off after dark, but I'm afraid it will still be humid so I'm debating about how to dress. Dad will be my date this time.

I have been off work since Wednesday, and I'm amazed at how quickly my little mini-vacation has gone by. Since I still don't know if my September week of vacation will be approved, I have nothing to look forward to now as far as time off. I think I need to plan a long weekend or something.