Fiesta Days 2011

I look forward to Fiesta Days in Spanish Fork all year long. For anyone not familiar with Fiesta Days, it is the town celebration for Spanish Fork, Utah. It's held over the 24^th of July weekend, which is also Pioneer Day here in Utah. There's a rodeo, carnival, craft show, parades, and everything else that goes along with a town celebration. We even have a fish rodeo, where kids catch fish with their bare hands.

The funnel cake stand at Fiesta Days has the best funnel cakes I have ever had, and I have tried funnel cakes all over the United States. This particular stand puts pudding and whipped cream, and chocolate syrup on top of the funnel cakes.

There is a pulled pork sandwich stand that possibly sells the best pulled pork available in Utah, if not the Western US. And there is another booth that sells tri-tip steak sandwiches that has a line worth waiting in.

Usually the Fiesta Days Grand Parade is a really fun parade. This year, not so much. To start with, the powers that be, aka the Spanish Fork City Council, decided that people in the parade could not throw candy. So almost every child who was attending the parade was disappointed, and bored. My niece and nephew ended up fighting through most of the parade, because they didn't have candy to scramble for.

I went to Spanish Fork High, and it pains me to say this, but what happened to the SFHS marching band? There were 9 people in the band at the parade. Nine. I don't know if that was all the people who are in the band, or if the bulk of them didn't show up. At any rate, it was rather pathetic and embarrassing. Especially when you compared it to the other high school bands that showed up.

Most of the local royalty were wearing gowns that were a disappointment. The worst dresses, however, were those worn by the Lehi royalty. No sure if they were actually made of khaki, but they didn't look like dresses any self-respecting beauty queen would wear. They looked more like something you would wear if you decided to wear a dress while you plowed the back 20.

I will give the local town royalty a break, and only say that Bob Marley and beauty queens don't really mix. Also, if I never hear Whitewater Chopsticks again it will be too soon.

I would give this year's Fiesta Days a 3 out of 5. The food was great, as usual, the carnival was pretty fun, I'm sure the rodeo was great, but the parade brought the score down. Not sure if I'll go next year.