Czech It

Last weekend we picked up a local paper that featured a list of all of the summer festivals in our area, so we decided to head down to the probably self-proclaimed Kolacky Capital of the World, Montgomery, MN, for their annual Kolacky Days.  

I guess a Kolacky is some sort of doughy treat with a filling, such as raspberry, apricot or poppy seed from the Czech Republic.  They were out of the raspberry, so we got a package of the poppy seed, which I was informed by the vendor, is the traditional filling.

 That's a package of kolackies.  They look like dinner rolls.  How many were in the package?  Six?  I don't know and I'm too lazy to go look at the bag.  Anyway, my reaction to these kolacky treats?  Meh.  

Maybe the raspberry is better.  Maybe that's why it was sold out.

Before we ate kolacky, we wanted some awesome festival food.  Maybe some good Czech food?  We should have known, however, that Czech food would be pork-based sausages.  Anyway, since we don't eat piggies (they are smart, like dogs), our choices were pretty limited.  We ordered potato dumplings and gravy and you could have that with or without sauerkraut.  We were served by a girl wearing a crown.

We missed the dance routine by the girls in traditional costumes.  Bummer.

I love the ribbon on the waistband.

We then moseyed over to the craft vendors, the majority of which were grandma crafts.  You know what I mean...old lady crafts with bears and kittens and flowers, like these:

 And these tissue box covers...though I'm semi-drawn to that red and pink one in the lower right quadrant:

And so we made our way back to the car.  I'm not sure we were even at the festival for more than an hour (did I mention it took an hour to get there?).  Plus that town had some sort of funky smell.  I've googled to see if there is a landfill or something in the area, but nothing has come up.  It really did stink.  Sorry, Montgomery.  

On our way back to the car, we stopped at a sweet shop/antique store, LaNette's Antiques and Lace.   It was kind of neat that you could sit at tables among all the antiques and enjoy your rootbeer floats...and sorry for the blurry picture -- I was holding the baby and she was squirming.

That's some local soda (or pop, as they call it here) called Spring Grove.  I've also seen it come in Cream Soda flavor.  Yummy!  

We were sitting next to these patchwork curtains that were on display and I kept admiring all the different fabric squares.

 Check out those red and white whales, above, and, below, I love that honeybee fabric.

I think I've caught the quilting bug and I really want to make "I Spy" quilts for all the kids I know.

So there you have it:  Kolacky, old lady crafts, local root beer, and fading patchwork.