Did you all attend the Carytown watermelon festival this Sunday at Richmond? If you had been to the festival, you could share your experience with all of us and if you haven’t, I shall fill you all in about my experience. This is an annual festival held at Carytown in Richmond and it was my first time here. A friend of mine invited me to join him and we had a wonderful time at the festival. It was a hot day, the temperature being 91 degree Fahrenheit. It was a good outing from home and other chores. The atmosphere was bustling with people, food, music and life.

It was good to see families visiting with their children and pets. Few parents were having a tough time controlling their naughty children. The music was live and loud. It was fun walking through all the stalls and choosing what we should binge on while listening to the music. Though the sun was bright, there were so many people moving around the stalls and shops on the streets and cooling themselves off. It was a good outing for children just before the end of summer and they were enjoying themselves. There was variety of food and drinks available at the festival. We had some watermelon and it was and delicious and refreshing. We roamed about the entire Carytown seeing different food stores and musicians playing their music. We enjoyed some of the live music playing Jazz, some country music and well known songs. I loved the rendition of Adele’s ‘Hello.’ We had Chicken Nuggets and Cajun fries at one of the food trucks and it was yummy and filling. We strolled for some more time and it was good to see people enjoying their Sunday at the festival. We also had a watermelon smoothie and some funnel cake which was refreshing and tasty. Some of the food trucks were closing shop and leaving. The crowd was getting thinner and the festival was coming to an end. Overall, the watermelon festival was good.

Local businesses and food trucks get a good opportunity during this festival to make sales and attract customers. I saw stall’s of Capital One, Geico, Krispy Kreme and few others. It’s a good platform for companies to put up their stalls and sponsor the local festival. The local people get in touch with these companies and businesses. The festival also reminded me of my native country India where we have similar events for different festivals. We have a similar annual festival on the groundnuts crop in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The festival also had some cool t- shirts on display such as the ‘I love Carytown’ and others. According to NBC, around 3000 watermelons were diced and sliced for this festival. The local farmers too are receiving benefits such as selling their watermelon produce directly to consumers at this festival. With this exasperating summer heat, this festival cools our body and mind. The watermelon festival was colorful with green, red, black and other colors. If you missed the festival, visit next year and enjoy. Take care of yourself in this hot summer!