THE PRAIRIE PEDDLER FESTIVAL--
Celebrates its 25th year

More than 180 craft and food vendors and thousands of daily visitors jam the 102 acre, wooded site of this annual festival on SR 97 several miles east of Butler, OH.  Festival organizers boast their event is one of the few places left to buy quality products, hand-made in America.

Traffic can be a hassle but planning to arrive after lunch often will have you driving unhindered right up to the entrance while the early attendees are leaving.  All that departing traffic also creates lots of parking spaces closer to the pedestrian entrances than you might expect.

Organizers also announced a second entrance into the grounds for this year in their promotional, Prairietown Gazette but information on its actual location eluded me.  I suspect it may be off Bunker Hill South Road.

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Then, the very next day the very popular Ohio Heritage Days were continuing at Malabar Farm State Park where crowds of visitors (below) swarmed a colonial style military encampment.  Folks in the upper right side of the photo were enjoying a demonstration of the period's black powder rifles while several times each day during the two-day event, the roar of cannon fire thundered around the valley.

One friendly park ranger, who was assisting from his normal assignment in the Cincinnati area, thought attendance would exceed 10,000 folks over the weekend.

Fogeyisms tips our hat to the park staff and helpers for their very efficient handling of parking and people transportation, mostly by teams of horses pulling wagons, around the expansive grounds and display areas; all this at not cost for attendance.

It's truly one of life's bargains.