Tarantula Festival - Coarsegold, CA

Hi all -- Dianne here.  Just a short blog for Halloween, showing some of the sights we saw yesterday at the Tarantula Festival in Coarsegold, CA.   Coarsegold is a small, friendly town near our campground that we've really enjoyed these past three weeks.


Every year they sponsor a Tarantula Awareness Festival the Saturday before Halloween.  Evidently, tarantulas are very beneficial and not poisonous, but they get a "bad rap" because of their scary appearance.  

 -- Not sayin' I'd ever hold one, like these brave little kids, but I'm not as scared of them now that I've learned more about them.  (There are no tarantulas in Indiana, of course, so I had never actually seen one before we got to New Mexico this fall).

Some of the other activities included a "Hairy Leg Contest."  These three gals came in at the top three.   

For the little kids, there were pumpkin decorating activities...

...and tarantula races, using fake tarantulas that hop when the kids squeeze on an air bulb handle.  It was fun watching them!


  Of course, the kids came in costume.




Some four-legged kids also came in costume -- you know I couldn't leave without some photos of them!  Check out the giant stuffed tarantula riding on the black dog's back (easy to miss in the photo):

This little guy must have gone to my high school (We were the Frankfort Hot Dogs -- really!)

This greyhound wasn't in costume, but you know I couldn't resist a photo of it.

We also got to see the "meet and greet" of the greyhound with two of the costumed dogs.

Here's a close-up of the tarantula being held by the little girl in the above photo:

 

Here's an even bigger tarantula being held by a BIG man with BIG hands.  They may be beneficial, but you can be sure I'd let out a whoop if I came upon one of these suddenly!

We've come a long way from the festive fall displays we used to do at our stix and brix house.  The little goblin on the left is our granddaughter, Kaia, when she was little.

Here's what our festive display is this year:   

This is our Jack-O-Lantern car dressed up to scare the rodents out of the engine block!!  (There's a Jack-O-Lantern motor home similarly dressed, but one photo should suffice!)

For the whippet photo of the day I decided to use one of the older photos of the "boys" taken at our veterinarian's annual "Bark-toberfest."  There is always a photographer there ready to take photos (for a price).  We hadn't had Chaplin very long when this photo was taken.  It's an oldie but a goodie!!