tuftears | The Mountain View 2015 Arts & Wine Festival (Reply)

Every year around this time, Mountain View has a pretty big arts & wine festival! I stumbled onto it last year by accident but I saw some advance notice of it this year. So I went, of course.

Along the way, I encountered this Very Grumpy Cat. He glared death at me, as if to say 'This is my territory, clear off.'

The fair stretches all the way from Central Expressway to El Camino Real-- about eight blocks. That's a lot of walking! It took me almost two hours to go down one way and come up the other, albeit I wasn't going very fast and I did have lunch on the way.

Plenty of musicians were on hand, like this bunch...

Or this fellow playing a very unusual looking instrument, a "nyckelharpa". It looks awesome, don't you think?

There were lots of food booths around! I stopped here to get a lamb gyro. I was tempted by the crispy roti, but it seemed like a lot of carbs and fat. The lamb gyro had plenty of caramelized onions and bits of tomatoes on it at least, along with the very tasty spiced meat.

They were individually cooking the Philly cheesesteaks as well, so the line moved slowly. Ensures the ingredients are fresh off the grill at least, though, rather than scooped lukewarm from a box or something.

My gyro! It was quite a handful.

Even more food! I noticed there were quite a few repeats, though-- lots of teriyaki bowl vendors, and there weren't many fried pastries sellers like funnel cakes or doughnuts, as I would have expected.

Dessert for me was this rootbeer-flavored shaved ice. Hey, it supports the local high school's choir. >_>

There were plenty of artists to be seen at the fair as well. I picked up a postcard from keithliang.com - he had a number of simply amazing prints of photographs from China that blurred the line between painting and photographs simply by the evocative nature of their subjects. I felt it would be improper to just take a picture of the booth, but go to this link for an example. It's not the postcard I got, but similar.

I noticed this one seller with vests and stopped by to see how it'd look. I kinda like the look, but the pockets are too small for me to make practical use of them. Looking at their website, it doesn't seem like they have the wherewithal to make custom vests though. Still, I should see about approaching some Etsy tailor about that sort of thing. Hemp might be a good material; according to the lady I spoke with, it's supposed to be four times stronger than cotton.

For

rowyn, a dress with pockets!

This rather intimidating looking vehicle was on exhibit. It seemed to belong to some kind of 'Civil Contingency Reaction Force' or some such.

There were the same sellers of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, beef jerky, corn nuts, and the like that I had seen last year, but I noticed this unusual offering in the Bee Ladies' stall: bee pollen! Yes, apparently there is some kind of medical benefit from consuming this stuff. Well, it may be just folklore, I don't think there are any hard and fast studies on the subject as yet. Still, I picked up a bottle of orange blossom honey from them because, hey, honey is always good.

These were taking up space in one of the center intersections, but I have to admit they looked pretty relaxing and fun. It might be neat to have one of these in my backyard. The only problem is, of course, that I never use the backyard anyway. Maybe at some point in the future!