Brat Fest

I've worked in the Madison area (with a year and a half stationed in Illinois) for 33 years and never been to the world's largest brat fest.. I'm not a huge fan of crowds and over-amped bands. Or 92 degree heat.

But someone locked keys inside the van, so as long as I was there already...

The battling bands had their speakers oriented to not interfere with each other much: somebody has been planning well. The centerpiece is the brat tent (well, for a lot of people the centerpieces were the beer tents), which was wide and 2-sided and quite fast: 30 seconds of being in line and 10 seconds to buy and I was headed to the condiment tent. I had my choice of celebrity cashiers: a local NPR radio personality, Miss Wisconsin, or a middle school teacher. (I went with the teacher.)

Just like any fair, there was a midway, and there were booths for this and that, and kid crafts and a petting zoo, and a pond to watch birds by, and a horse show (aren't fairs like that where you live?). And, in honor of Memorial Day, they had a subset of the Vietnam memorial with pictures of Wisconsin soldiers who had died in the war.

At 92 degrees it wasn't crowded at all.

Maybe in another 33 years I'll go to State Street Halloween.