Newington's Annual Waterfall Festival (1)

Welcome to the official end of the summer of 2010 on Shooting Suburbia! The next series of posts for the months of January & February will cover Newington's Annual Waterfall Festival. Whereas the previous series covered the true start of the local summer season with the Extravaganza, the Waterfall Festival (so named for the Mill Pond Waterfall) officially closes out the local summer season. So, come join me on a walk through downtown Newington as I explore the local artist and food scene.

This is the first thing that you actually see as you enter Newington from Wethersfield and other points north. And let me tell you, it wasn't easy to get this particular shot. But as they say, prior planning prevents poor performance (yes, I actually planned this entire series of posts that you'll be seeing). I started out on my journey to the center by not taking my usual route (which you can see right behind the sign), but by walking up Mountain Road, which runs next to Cedar Mountain. It was a fantastic Indian summer day, just cool enough to be able to wear regular jeans and not sweat. Because I didn't take my normal route, I had to cross five lanes of traffic in order to get this shot.

I've taken this shot quite a few times over the years (it is the front of the senior citizen apartment building), but this one shows the bright colorful shrubbery and plant life, and the fully greened out trees as well.

Now when I was walking towards the center from the mountain, repeat, the mountain, I heard a band playing from the festival, which was a good mile away. This sound stage is actually borrowed from the Wethersfield Historical Society and it's set up near the upper end of Market Square near Main street. They had a pretty decent mix of original music and cover songs. I think this was a jazz/rock type of combo, which was filmed for our local public access channel, which sad to say, I do not get.

Now, since it was near lunch time, you know I had to get me some good eats, and my lunch time eats for the day was from Goldburgers (if you're wondering about my profile shot, that was taken at the 2009 Waterfall festival, also during lunch at Goldburgers). Lunch was a Diet Coke, two pork and potato empanadas and a regular order of fresh cut french fries. The building in the background is Dunkin' Donuts, and yes that is my hat and my glasses sitting on the wall. For any of you local readers who might be interested, Goldburgers can be found on Facebook. Their avatar on Facebook is a burger, waffle fries and homemade pickles, and they do have a menu posted on their page as well.

And now, what the Waterfall Festival is really all about: the artwork. The main attraction of the Waterfall Festival, and in fact, what about 90% of the rest of the photos are all about, are the very large (I believe they were at least 11' by 11' squares) chalk/oil pastel drawings that are created on the street. Yes, I said street. Newington closes off Market Square and creates a large section for any and all local artists to create their masterpieces. This one that you see, was created in a specially designed area for the younger set. There weren't too many of them, but I decided to get a few shots of them just the same.