Festival Fun in South Carolina

Last weekend was exciting. Instead of spending all my time in the bunkhouse baking bread (what I did the weekend before), Whitney (fellow intern), Jake (her boyfriend), and I hit up two local festivals: the Pine Straw Festival  in Patrick and the Strawberry Festival at McLeods Farm just outside of McBee. 

First up was the Pine Straw Festival. We drove all the way to Patrick, 20 minutes away, for this. 

The Pine Straw Festival did have a bouncy slide, which I suppose was pretty exciting.  I don't know they would have let us on, though. Maybe if we had a small child they would have, but there weren't any around we could borrow. 

Small line-up of old cars and some people I don't know. 

Don't have booths like this at home in Ohio... 

We spent about four minutes walking around because I wanted to take pictures of pine straw (of which there was none). Pine straw is fallen pine needles that are gathered up and used as mulch. You would think that if the festival was named after pine straw there would be some there, an informational booth or something at least. But no. I was disappointed. 

I soon got over my disappointment when we headed back to McBee and McLeod's Strawberry Festival. A much better festival, primarily because we ate peach enchiladas and ice cream (makes my mouth water now just thinking about it) and they also had a booth for Carolina Sandhills Refuge, wagon rides, cornhole, and kids crafts. And strawberries, peaches, and other fresh produce. 

I bought a basket of these delicious strawberries, some of the best I've ever had. And now I have a sweet white plastic basket that says Mac's Pride.  

Yummy-looking peaches. Haven't had any yet, but the peach ice cream was good. 

They also have a small museum with all sorts of neat random old stuff, including cars, artwork, cash registers, cases of old knives, a row of rocking chairs, and these decoys. 

Wall of tools and things. 

One of the collection of old fans sitting next to the collection of cash registers. 

Whitney and I went to the small McLeod's produce stand just down the road from the refuge one day after work for peach ice cream. Not a good idea. Now that I know there is homemade peach ice cream so close,   I'm going to be there everyday after work. My entire weekly stipend is going to be spent on peach ice cream. 

If you're interested, here's the McLeod's website: http://www.macspride.com

It says they deliver peaches, but I'm not sure how far (as probably most of the people reading this are not in South Carolina). I plan on personally sampling a large variety of their produce, baked goods and deserts in the next few months, so I'll let you know how everything is.