By Carl Sampson
I recently received a brand new road atlas. I don’t know about you, but one of my favorite things is to sit down with maps and plot future expeditions.
Oh, I don’t mean hiking through the Khyber Pass or trekking through Outer Mongolia. A trip across the state is about as exotic as I usually get.
Atlases are perfect for calculating the most scenic routes and the mileage, and cool places to stop for a visit. To me, that’s what travel is all about. I can’t tell you how many great trips were the result of wonderful folks we met, not the number of stars the hotels had.
And yes, I know that you can do a lot of that online. Google has a mapping application that calculates your mileage as you plot your course. Which is great, unless you’re like me and want to find the best route, not the fastest.
Anyway, I was rummaging through this atlas and found what I thought was the coolest directory yet. It had a “Guide to 600 Festivals and Events.” Which is perfect for me. I was sure that the Mt. Angel Oktoberfest, Silverton’s Homer Davenport Days, Sublimity’s Harvest Fest and Stayton’s Summer Fest would be listed.
Along with the Aumsville Corn Festival and the scores of other festivals in the area, any guide to festivals worth its salt would list all of these.
Boy howdy, was I wrong. There was the Cottin Pickin’ Fair in Gay, Ga., the Lucy Desi Days in Jamestown, N.Y., and the Corn Palace Festival in Mitchell, S.D. Also listed were the Potato Bowl USA Festival in East Grand Forks, N.D., the Whole Enchilada Fiesta in Las Cruces, N.M., and the Benson Mule Days in Benson, N.C.
But not a single area festival was listed.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. Why would anyone list the Oktoberfest-Zinzinnati in Cinncinnati, Ohio, but not the best Oktoberfest, in Mt. Angel?
It just doesn’t make any sense.
I realize that not every single local festival could ever be listed. That would look like the Portland Yellow Pages. But I’d at least ask around, at chambers of commerce or visitors’ centers.
Any chamber president worth his or her salt would mention the local festivals.
Here are some other festivals that got a shout-out in the atlas: the Ohio Sauerkraut Festival in Waynesville, Ohio, Mike the Headless Chicken Festival in Fruita, Colo., Hillbilly Days in Pikeville, Ky., and Twins Days in Twinsburg, Ohio.
Oh, come on — Twins Days? Please.
Maybe we need to cook up a festival with more pizzazz to get a mention in atlases and elsewhere.
It has come to my attention that this area has something no other area in the world has. It has the world’s largest hairball. That’s right, at the Mt. Angel Abbey Museum is the largest hairball you’d ever care to see. Actually, there are a couple of them, as I recall.
We could have Hairball Fest, and the motto could be “Come and cough up a good time!”
If that festival doesn’t get noticed, I don’t know what would.
