Town #4 West Hartford (visit #5)

Saturday, June 13, 2009
Celebrate West Hartford Festival

Celebrate West Hartford is an annual, “two-day, family-oriented event that features top notch entertainment, a fabulous food court, an amusement park, a 5K road race, and a juried arts and crafts show. It’s also a showcase for West Hartford’s civic, school, and service organizations.” It takes place on the Town Hall Common, 50 South Main Street, Saturday from 10-6 and Sunday from 12-6, rain or shine.

This event caught our attention and we worked it in after visiting Lyman Orchard. We browsed around the arts and crafts displays and found some nice work from the artists. Early on, we spotted an artist’s work involving woodburning and painting/staining nautical and shore scenes on wood. Jan suggested I choose something for Father’s Day, so I kept that in mind as we continued our rounds. I selected a new hand-tooled leather dress belt for my wardrobe and Jan picked up a few trinkets for herself. We got to the point where the food court sounded very appealing, so we headed there. Wanting to sample some different food items, we started with Afghan chicken kabobs. They were good and we shared one order. Then we continued to some Armenian food, enjoying an order of stuffed grape leaves. They were different for us, but very tasty. We wound up choosing a tried and true American dessert, strawberry shortcake, and found a place to sit while we ate that. It was quite good, as well. We went back to Woodburnings by Thom Cassotta and bought a 6-foot-long scene done on pine. We will mount it on the dining room valence. We headed home by midafternoon.