Festivals

Frederick knows how to throw a good party. Every first Saturday of the month is called Gallery Walk. The stores stay open later, as do the galleries. Every month has a theme. In February, they do ice sculptures. Sometimes it's even cold enough for them to last longer than a day. In August, it's the dog days, where you can bring your dog down for games and prizes. October is In the Streets, where they close down the main road to cars, and open it up to over 50,000 people. Then there are the non-first Saturday festivals. In December, they do a candlelight houses of worship tour (it's not called "Church Street" for nothin'). In the Spring, there's a tour of private gardens. In June, the Festival of the Arts is held, which brings artisans and craftsman from all over the country. And those are just city events. The county also has great events, like a pumpkin patch in October, the fair, and several major craft shows.



In the Street is one of my favorites. There's always a band playing or a group dancing. The block between 6th and 7th street was for the skateboarders. At one point, there was nearly 100 kids doing tricks.

The restaurants come out and have a limited tasting menu. And, last year they added some art vendors. This year, there were about 4 different free moon-bounces for the kids.

The really neat thing about it is that it celebrates Frederick. There were maybe 5 groups who were not from the city or county. The rest were locals. With the economy slowing down (hello understatement!), it's one of my goals to buy local. I want to make sure our main street doesn't change for the worse.