Sat Afternoon at the Elmwood Arts Festival

Earlier in the week we decided to head down to the Elmwood Arts Festival this weekend. Yesterday we checked the weather and saw that Saturday was definitely the better day although it was going to be a very nice weekend weather both days. The Saturday high was 76 and the high for Sunday was to be 88. Both sunny days. We knew from past experience that walking around in the sun in a city street was going to be hot and so Saturday it was.

And it was very warm today even for the 70's because of the crowds and the hot asphalt under foot. Fortunately there was a very nice breeze and it was very comfortable in the shade which there was plenty of along the side of the street. A couple of times we found some very nice shady spots to sit in chairs and enjoy some live music on the various stages. This was actually the first time since the pandemic began that we have gone somewhere to see live music. We enjoyed it very much. 

We ran into several people we knew including Val and Bobby whom we were just on vacation with last month and Joe and Lori whom we just saw at their WOW a couple of weeks ago. We also saw some other people we knew but couldn't always get together with them. We were not the other ones running into people we knew. It was fun to see so many other people greeting friends and family as they were walking down the street. Buffalo is a big city that so often feels like a small town.

The festival stretched from just a little north of Lafayette Street down to to Ferry which was about six blocks. We parked on Chapin Parkway just off of Gates Circle and walked the long block of Lafayette to Elmwood. The first stage for music was at St James and we started there before eventually making our way down one side of Elmwood to check out all the artists and social service stands. Everything was very busy. We made our way down to Ferry and the end of the festival and then back up the other side.

One of the highlights of the day was walking through the children's area where they had many activities for kids. We saw a tent full of kids playing violins. There were dozens of them performing with their Suzuki based program instructors. They really did sound good and these were little kids. We were very impressed.

I had looked up the food options at the festival on their website and saw that they had a large number of food trucks on hand. I was interested in possibly checking out the Tiny Thai truck. There were so many options and then I was thinking that this Thai food would be a lot better if we were enjoying it in a nice restaurant and we decided to look at some other food truck and the one that caught my attention was Fat Bob's BBQ. Now that was food that would be good sitting outside on a bench and that is what we did. It was very good. I also got a nice pilsner from Pressure Drop Brewery that was available there.

After we ate we stopped at the St James stage again to see some more live music where we ran into Val and Bobby again who were also sitting there enjoying the band. After a while we decided to head back to our car.

We had a great time at the festival and were very glad we decided to go down there. It was fun being on Elmwood Avenue and walking around. We were there at the festival for three hours. We walked back over Lafayette Street to our car and then we were back home in well under 10 minutes. It was a very enjoyable afternoon.

It turned out to be a beautiful evening too. I sat in our backyard sunroom writing this and it was almost cool and actually did get cool as the sun went down.