Summer Plannin' Had Me a Blast!

The Pittsburgh City Paper's Summer Guide is available in this week's issue & I'm scribbling all of the fairs, festivals, events (that I probably won't actually go to) in my planner. I always have the best intentions, but rarely follow through on summer plans. Well, there is one exception to that "but" THE BIG BUTT FAIR, of course. The Big Butler Fair has been a staple of 4th of July week festivities for years & years. Last summer, Julia, Drewby, Colby, Kati & I went to the Big Butler Fair. You ring it, you win it...knives. I won three pocket knives because of my excellent ring tossing abilities. A few years ago, Julia, SuzAnne & I took the little boy Julia babysat to the fair, a strange little kid who refused to get his hand stamped & screamed & cried when we tried to convince him to get it stamped. Quite the spectacle at the entrance gates. And many, many years ago, Julia, Blair & I went to the fair. I don't recall any specifics from the day on the fairgrounds, but I remember that we watched fireworks in the parking lot & Julia dented the hood of our car laying across it, standing on it. Then as we left the lot, I rearended the guy in front of me. Julia screamed, "Yeeeeeeoowwwww!" Blair still imitates her well, even today, about 11 years later. The plans for this summer:

June 6th & 7th ART3: Art Cubed

June 6th - 22nd Three Rivers Arts Festival (unfortunately it will likely rain every weekend, as that is part of the tradition)

June 21st Homegrown Hooha at Starlake (yes, I will continue to call it "Starlake" not "Post-Gazette Pavilion") with The Clarks & Donnie Iris

June 22nd PrideFest activities (I haven't found many details on this yet, activities may actually begin on June 16th, not sure?)

June 25th - 28th Bloomfield Community Festival at the Immaculate Conception parking lot

June 27th - July 5th Big Butler Fair, holla!

June 28th, July 26th, August 23rd Shadyside Jams

July 7th Lawrenceville Community Festival at Arensal Park

July 12th Steve Miller at Starlake (if Drewby is down for it, as the 12th is his birthday)

August 9th South Oakland Community Festival at Dan Marino Field

August 15th - 23rd Westmoreland County Fair

August 21st Counting Crows & Maroon 5 (indie!) at Starlake

August 24th - 30th Indiana County Fair

August 29th - September 1st Pennsylvania Arts and Crafts Colonial Festival at Westmoreland County fairgrounds

September 5th - 7th Pittsburgh Irish Festival

September 20th - 21st Shadyside Arts Festival on Walnut & Ellsworth Aves

September 20th - 21st, 27th - 28th Penn's Colony

As I'm looking at the list, I realize I won't make it to three concerts this summer. I usually only go to one, and last summer I didn't go to Starlake at all. And those county fairs, Westmoreland & Indiana especially, bump up against each other. There's only so many chicken coops you can walk through, only so many corndogs you can eat in a given month, so we'll see.