Fall Festival, Manassas

The weather forecast for Saturday threatened showers so Barb and I decided to stay close to home and went to visit the Fall Festival in Manassas Old Town. For the past few years the community has worked hard to draw business and visitors to the area so that now it has been transformed to a lovely area to visit. There are craft,antique and book stores with wonderful restaurants and events planned throughout the year. This festival has grown in size with the streets filled with vendors and entertainment. 

Our first stop was an area where the Chainsaw Chicks were creating works of art from tree stumps drawing a large crowd.

 

 

The finished carvings were auctioned off and collected over $2000 which I think went to the U.S. Forest Service. The fox carving raised over $300. Each carving took over an hour to complete and each of the girls had 3 chainsaws fuelled to use throughout their creations. We marveled at how they wielded such heavy instruments in the blazing sun to create such wonderful pieces of art.

We both had a turn at wearing the local firefighter garb. 

There were also civil war characters with tents, fires and cooking demonstrations near the old cannons.

Apparently the guy who lives here is quite a character known for speaking his mind and flouting his opinion in his back yard where everyone can see from the street.

 

There was plenty of entertainment for the kids with swings, pumpkin decorating booths, palm trees to climb and dance routines in the pavillion.

This church is now a mexican restaurant so we went inside to investigate and whet our lips with a beer. When the barman refused to take our money, we discovered we had crashed a wedding! Our cameras drew a few looks from their official photographer so we knocked our beers back and headed out, as we were feeling decidedly uncomfortable. I didn't even realize the white fluffy veils draped outside were an indicator of the activities inside, I'd just put it down to the restaurant's decor since it had once been a church.

We headed next to the cemetery where we spent a while roaming around looking at the headstones and the confederate area fenced off. I spotted a train carriage at the edge painted with this wonderful graffiti.

I though this was the saddest grave in the cemetery, a headstone marked only with a name and this dear little bedraggled teddy bear sitting up against it, which had obviously sat through many downpours.

We later walked past this abandoned house which Barb informed me was a Sears catalog house, and supposedly the only one in the area. As dusk was drawing in, we packed our cameras away and headed back to the welcoming sounds of the festival, where we sat with a beer listening to the bands until it was time to go home. And not a drop of rain!