And you thought you've carved big pumpkins!

Here are some pics that I snapped last weekend at the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin festival. I remember going to this when I was a kid and just loving the experience. A few weeks ago I saw a documentary on "Giant Pumpkin Growing Contests" on PBS which totally fascinated me. I guess that is what you get when you watch PBS when you are bored on a Sunday afternoon. Anyway, it made me remember about the Pumpkin Festival and the fact that they were having the weigh in contest for the great pumpkin the monday before the festival began. I didn't make it to the weigh in on my day off but I sure did have fun on that Saturday!


As usual, there was traffic congestion on the freeway out there. However what is normally around a 45 minute to an hour trip took over 2.5 hours to get there.



The scenery was beautiful - look at how the huge trees create such a canopy to drive under. We had three days of rain which for Northern California is a lot at one time at this point in the season. Yet Friday evening the skies began to clear up and the weekend was incredibly beautiful and warm. Didn't even need a jacket at the coast as I thought I would.



Almost there - the longest 2 miles that I remember.


The pumpkin fields and stands begin to show up just outside of Half Moon Bay. Boy where they festive!



Here are some pictures of the "great" pumpkin that came in at 1543 pounds and this guy who carves two giant pumpkins each year at the festival. This is the one that he was nearly done with as of 2 p.m. on Saturday.